If for Honor and Glory
by OO83
Summary: -AU-Yaoi-SasuNaru- Konoha has been at war for ten years, and it seems that their last hope lies with a select group of children, most notably, Sasuke and Naruto. At least, they would be, if they don't kill each other first.
1. Prologue and a Beginning

Warning: This will contain shounen ai of the SasuNaru variety. If that makes you nervous, stop right here, hit the back button and go on as if you never saw this story. For those of you anticipating SasuNaru, it will be a slow developing thing, so please be patient.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, of course not. Isn't that basically a given?  
  
--------  
  
Prologue and a Beginning  
  
History written by men has never been too accurate or very truthful, always swayed by the whims of the writer and the bias of society, but one thing was a clear fact even in those skewed annals. One man had turned the tides of time to his favor some ten years ago, marching upon his neighboring countries with armies of destruction and conquest, mercilessly turning the once peaceful land of Fire into an embodiment of its name.  
  
It was ten years ago, that the country of Sound, a small, seemingly insignificant scrawl on a map, had attacked every country that it did not consider an ally, tromping over them like a giant over an anthill, killing all who got in its way without distinguishing between soldier and innocent. Fire country, being its foremost enemy, had suffered the most devastation out of everyone involved, its armies of skilled ninjas decimated before a force too great for anyone to have ever imagined.  
  
Ten years ago, Fire country lost the battle of Borderline and lost most its lands and people to the country of Sound. The horrible loss had forced survivors to retreat to Konoha, their last stronghold, their only measure of hope. Ever since then, Konoha could only send out limited number of soldiers to fight the unending battles on the bloody fields outside Konoha, just barely managing to keep the enemy from the gates.  
  
The losses were great, the number of able bodied soldiers decreased every day the war raged, and so, the leader of Fire country, the Third Hokage as he was diademed, set forth a law that might have seemed heartless in gentler times. He decided that since there were not enough adults to fill the space of soldiers, so it must fall to the children.  
  
That is how the Special Academy was formed. That is how the children of Konoha began training as soldiers. That is how destiny was put into motion for a select group of children.  
  
--  
  
In his heart, he knew that he could have done better. He knew that had he studied a little harder, maybe even trained a bit more, he could have passed with top scores in his class and gotten into the Special Academy as a star.  
  
It was just too bad that he was too damned lazy to care about any of that stuff.  
  
Nara Shikamaru, a fifteen year old boy of too little ambition and too many complaints, pondered about his acceptance into the Special Academy a bit more before slouching off to the main building where he was supposed to meet the rest of his battalion. From the looks of the graduating class, it seemed that only nine or ten of his classmates had actually passed the tests to get into the Special Academy, himself included, but he could care less about that. All he wanted to do was get to the building, find out who his roommate would be and get some sleep.  
  
He knew from the letter sent by the Academy office that he was a part of the 121st Battalion, and that his team would consist of twelve soldiers and four commanding officers. Besides that, no one had deemed it important enough to tell him, and he had not cared enough to inquire.  
  
'Ah, well,' he thought as he passed through the front doors, 'I guess I'll find out all that soon enough..'  
  
--  
  
Haruno Sakura, the pink haired vision of loveliness, sat only three chairs away from his devoted eyes, her smile enchanting and her green eyes sparkling. He had known that Sakura had aimed to get into the Special Academy and had tried his best so that he could go with her. Now, it seemed that all his sleepless nights and migraine headaches have paid off; after all, was he, Uzumaki Naruto, not sitting in the same room with his dream girl, in the Special Academy, and in the same battalion at that?  
  
Somebody upstairs certainly must have loved him, because it was too wonderful to be true.  
  
He had loved her since he was too young to know the difference between boys and girls, and had followed her around ever since then despite the constant put downs, turn downs and god knows how many physical assaults from the pink goddess. During school, when they had been learning the various arts of the ninja, he had sought to impress her with his stylish moves, but she had never paid attention. But then again, that might not have been so bad, since he did mess up most of the times and had been laughed at more than admired.  
  
Actually, Naruto could not remember being admired at any point, but that was beside the point. Admired or not, messed up or not, here he was, in the Special Academy. That alone must show Sakura that he was not a loser, that his blond, sunny hair did not mean his head was as empty as it stereotyped and that he did indeed have a chance to be in her presence without feeling her wrath.  
  
Naruto's intense scrutiny of his position in relation to Sakura blocked out all other things around him, such as the fact that other members of the battalion were trickling in one by one. Had he paid attention, he would have realized that most of them were from his graduating class, and that each and every one of them was giving him a look that was a cross between confusion and utter surprise.  
  
"Hey," whispered Shino as he sat down next to Shikamaru, "why is Naruto here?"  
  
Shikamaru picked his head up from the desk to stare indignantly at Shino who had bothered his near venture into sleep. Aburame Shino, he had not changed much since graduation, but who could tell with half his face covered by the raised collar of his coat and his eyes behind those creepy sunglasses?  
  
"He must've passed. Or he's trespassing. I don't care."  
  
It was rather troublesome that Shino had brought up the question, however, since he had been wondering about that himself. How had Naruto come to be in the Special Academy when Shikamaru knew for a fact that the boy had failed practically every exam ever given in the school? Not to mention, Naruto had been terrible at all types of jutsus, an essential and mandatory skill for anyone to get into the Special Academy. In one incident, Naruto had somehow succeeded in blowing up a part of their classroom with his failed fire jutsu and had sent their teacher, Iruka, to the emergency room.  
  
Shikamaru narrowed his brown eyes as he stared at Naruto's back, as if staring hard enough could bring him the answer, but at that moment, yet another classmate from his class entered and broke his concentration by sitting himself directly in his line of sight to Naruto.  
  
"Well, well," muttered Shikamaru, "if it isn't the prince himself.."  
  
Snorting to himself, Shikamaru buried his head into his arms on his desk, protecting his ears from what could be a very loud and piercing noise.  
  
"Sasuke-kun!!!!!!"  
  
Everyone, with the exception of Shikamaru who had already taken preventive measures, cringed in pain, as a blur of long blond hair streaked from one end of the classroom to the other in a pace so fast that it created a tailspin wind behind her. Aforementioned Sasuke sat impassive in his chair, not paying attention to the adoring mass of female standing a little too close to him.  
  
"I knew we'd be in the same battalion!" gushed Ino, her blue eyes wide and sparkling with joy. She would have continued on with the gushing, but soon she was ousted from Sasuke's side by Sakura, her best friend and worst enemy.  
  
"My, aren't we a little forward, Ino?"  
  
"My, aren't we a little ugly, Sakura?"  
  
The two raging females stared and growled at each other over Sasuke's dark mop of hair, their arms raised in fighting stances and their chakra level spiking. Sasuke merely stood and moved to another chair, away from the two girls fighting over his non-attention like two squirrels over a nut.  
  
Throughout all this, Naruto could only frown in heartbreak. Sakura, his vision of perfection, was only paying attention to Sasuke again. She had never even deigned to give him the time of day, but when Sasuke showed up, she would cater to his every whim.  
  
That is, if Uchiha Sasuke even had a whim. Naruto wasn't so sure if Sasuke had whims, or emotions.  
  
That aside, it ticked him off that Sasuke, who had the adoring attention of Sakura, did not even appreciate what he had. And what did Sakura, or any other female in existence, see in Sasuke anyway? Naruto turned his baby blue eyes to the Uchiha boy and shook his head. He could see nothing too different that set Sasuke so far apart from him. Sure, the guy might have been good looking in that ice man kind of way, what with his dark, almost bluish hair, complemented by his black eyes and pale skin. Yeah, Naruto thought, Sasuke might be a good looking guy, even if he looked somewhat like a frozen corpse.  
  
Okay, sure, Sasuke might be better looking than him.. and he was taller, but then again, who the hell wasn't.. and he was smarter if their test scores told anything.. and he was better at jutsu, be it ninjutsu, genjutsu or taijutsu, but hell, everyone was.. and he was the last of the illustrious and powerful Uchiha clan.. and he was rich..  
  
Naruto stopped before he could go on. This was depressing him.  
  
But damn it, they were on equal ground now, weren't they? They were both in the Special Academy, so what did it matter if Sasuke got in with the highest scores and he had barely squeaked by the skin of his teeth? Setting his chin at a confident angle, Naruto decided it was time to make sure Sakura knew that he was alive and on the same level as Sasuke. He looked at Sakura, still engaged in a stare battle with Ino, then at Sasuke who sat between him and the object of his affections, girded up his proverbial loins and stood. He would walk up to Sakura, show her that he was as good, if not better than Sasuke somehow, and make his mark.  
  
So intent was he on Sakura, so concentrated on her beautiful form as he was, Naruto failed to notice that there was an extraneous chair in his way. Therefore, he could only gasp in surprise when he tripped and plunged towards the floor face first.  
  
Lucky for him, his face did not meet the floor, but landed on something a bit softer, a little more yielding. He registered that whatever his face had smashed into was somewhat pleasant and warm, and he sighed in relief. At least he had not broken his nose for that would not have impressed Sakura any.  
  
Then it actually registered in his brain just what that something his face was on. It was a lap. For a blissful moment, Naruto pictured it was Sakura's lap and felt a blush creep onto his face, but the next moment, he realized something. His left cheek was against something that just did not belong on a female's anatomy.  
  
'Oh, shit..' Naruto thought, just before he lifted his embarrassed and chagrined face towards the owner of the lap.  
  
A very pissed off, disbelieving Uchiha Sasuke.  
  
A brief thought of 'why do these things happen to me' occurred to Naruto before Sasuke stood and shoved Naruto's shocked body off him. Only then did Naruto see that it wasn't only Sasuke who was looking at him with murder in his eyes but Sakura and Ino had the same look in their eyes as well. Also, it seemed that everyone in their battalion had arrived and was staring at him with gaping jaws.  
  
There could have been a messy slaughter of one Uzumaki Naruto, there could have been a massive round of laughter from his classmates about his current situation. Hell, there even could have been singing choirs of angels welcoming him into the bosom of heaven, but none of it happened because thankfully, at that moment of shocked dead air, one of their commanding officers walked in and demanded attention.  
  
"What is going on already?"  
  
All heads whipped towards the voice, from Naruto who was nearly prone on the floor to Sakura who was in the middle of picking up a chair to bash his head in.  
  
There stood in the doorway, leaning rather casually against the door jamb, was a man with a cigarette dangling from his lips quirked into a smile. His dark eyes held amusement at the scene before him, and he did not quite know if he should scold the class for such a raucous behavior or compliment them for their liveliness.  
  
"I hope all this energy won't disappear on the battlefield," he said as he walked casually into the midst of his shocked soldiers, "and I suggest you all take a seat."  
  
Almost immediately, everyone took a seat at the nearest chair possible, and fortunately for Sakura, it was right next to Sasuke. Smiling smugly towards Ino who was a bit further off, Sakura tossed her hair right into Naruto's face just behind her.  
  
Before Naruto could lodge a complaint, before he could even acknowledge that his beloved had touched him albeit accidentally and painfully, the commanding officer took the situation into his hands.  
  
"Welcome to the 121st Battalion. I'm one of your commanders, Sarutobi Asuma."  
  
With that, he looked around at the faces of his soldiers. There were twelve of them, and only three were not replacements. The three, Hyuuga Neji, TenTen and Rock Lee, were the only survivors of the 121st and had been with him for a year now. Only four weeks ago, the 121 was a fully manned twelve soldier team, but then, they had gone off to battle near the Borderline. And only those three and the four commanding officers had made it back alive. It was depressing to Asuma that he had survived so many skirmishes and battles only to see the young soldiers in his command get killed and injured beyond repair. Most of them were between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. If it wasn't for the war with the Sound, they should all be in school, worrying about tests and dating instead of stepping onto the slaughtering fields.  
  
"Anyway," Asuma continued, clearing his head of sad thoughts, "welcome, nine rookies, and welcome back, Neji, TenTen, and Lee."  
  
He nodded towards the three that he knew and received a nod from each of them. They were sixteen, and according to record, only a year older than the nine rookies. He wondered if they would all get along, if they would all get to be friends only to say goodbye when one of them died.  
  
He wondered if he could take this for much longer.  
  
--  
  
"Someone up there really fucking hates me," grumbled Naruto as he lugged his bag to his newly assigned dormitory room. Earlier, he had been ecstatic, convinced that his luck had finally turned for the better, being so damned near Sakura. Then, as they say, the shit had hit the fan, in the form of his face plant into Sasuke's lap. Then more shit had come flying straight at him, because after the lengthy explanation and orientation by Asuma, he had found himself assigned to the same damned room as Uchiha Sasuke.  
  
When he stepped into his new room, he found that the shit had not stopped flying just yet. He had somehow hoped that even if he was sharing a room with Sasuke, there would be enough space for him to set up camp and not ever interact with the boy. Unfortunately, such was not the case. There were three beds lined up against the far wall separated only by a small lamp table between them and the rest of the space only amounted to a tiny section with a low rising table with barely enough room for a cushion.  
  
Basically, from the space available and the arrangement of furniture, it seemed that Naruto would have to spend his time in this room with Sasuke in his face.  
  
"Yep, really hates me, damned bastards.."  
  
Wait, three beds?  
  
"Move, will you? I need to sleep."  
  
Naruto took a reflexive step into the room before turning his head. At the door stood Nara Shikamaru, his face twisted into his usual expression of annoyance, his brown hair twitching like a cat in a stir.  
  
"What are you doing.. I mean," Naruto stuttered, his brain unable to comprehend anything beyond the basic fact that Sasuke was his roommate, "are you here to switch with me?"  
  
The last bit came out fast and with an upsurge of unbelievable hope, but Shikamaru rolled his eyes at Naruto's enthusiasm and merely stepped in.  
  
"You idiot," Shikamaru sighed, "I'm your roommate, too."  
  
Huh? Naruto owlishly stared at Shikamaru as he unpacked on top of his selected bed then reread the paper that had assigned him to a Sasuke filled hell. And lo and behold, right below Uchiha's name was..  
  
Well, it had to be better than sharing a room alone with that stuck up ice prince, right?  
  
But, wait, why the hell was Shikamaru unpacking on one of the beds against the wall?  
  
"Shikamaru, NO! You have to take the middle!"  
  
Eyes narrowed, Shikamaru ignored Naruto as he continued, but it was so hard, so very hard to ignore a hopping lump of blond energy yelling at him in panic.  
  
"If you don't take the middle, then I'm gonna have to sleep near Sasuke! That's not cool! In fact, that is just fucking wrong!"  
  
"Shut up, idiot," came a voice and Naruto whirled to see Sasuke, the one who was causing all this mental distress, standing casually in the middle of the room staring at him as if he was the disgusting one.  
  
"I refuse to sleep here! I'm changing rooms!"  
  
"You really are an idiot," Sasuke spat, "this is the military. You don't get room changes because you don't like your roommate."  
  
"But.. but.." Naruto sputtered, "I hate you! And you hate me! One of us is gonna end up dead before the night's over!"  
  
"Yeah, you, dead last."  
  
"Fuck off, asshole!"  
  
"Both of you, shut up! I'm going to sleep!"  
  
Sasuke and Naruto turned in unison only to realize that they had gotten too close to each other during their argument when their faces ran into each other with a painful crack.  
  
"I'm going to kill you," Naruto grated as he staggered off to the middle bed holding his nose which was most likely going to swell to the size of Sasuke's goddamned ego.  
  
"Not if I kill you first," Sasuke growled as he walked to the bed furthest to the right, hoping against hope that he would not die from an aneurysm before he even saw battle.  
  
--  
  
In the building across from the boy's dormitory where Sasuke and Naruto were currently cursing everything holy and unholy, there stood the girl's dormitory. It was not nearly as large as the boy's seeing how there were more boys in the Special Academy than girls, but it was a nicer building filled with delicate female nuances.  
  
At least, it would seem that way until anyone stepped anywhere near the room shared by Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino.  
  
The two girls were currently in the middle of an argument to see who would get the bed by the window and who would be relegated to the shadowy wall. So far, they had argued about everything, from who got which desk, who got the first turn at the bathroom in the morning, and of course, who had the rights and the feminine wiles to date Uchiha Sasuke.  
  
Their voices escalated, their tempers frayed, and the sounds carried through the half foot of concrete and steel into the room adjacent to theirs, right into the ears of Hyuuga Hinata and TenTen. When they used some colorful words, Hinata blushed delicately, infusing her pale cheeks with pink color as her silver eyes looked off in a random direction, pretending not to hear. Occasionally, she twirled her short, dark hair in her finger, trying to find a way to not eavesdrop on Sakura and Ino who just kept getting louder.  
  
TenTen, on the other hand, had no such reservations and listened to every word unashamedly, even laughing softly at some of the more creative insults the girls threw around. It was good entertainment before going off to bed, really. She giggled some more as she unbound her brown hair from their restrains and ran a brush through it.  
  
"Hinata, right?" She said, tilting her head towards her new roommate. "Don't be so shy. They're the ones screaming."  
  
"It.. it's just that," Hinata stuttered as she twiddled her fingers together, "they.. well.. we shouldn't.."  
  
'Good gracious, she wouldn't be so bad if she could finish a sentence..' thought TenTen as she put her brush down and lathered some lotion on her arms. Her roommate before Hinata, Masaki had been her name, had been a boisterous girl filled with words. She had grieved when Masaki died four weeks ago, and even now, there was a space in her heart that seemed empty. She wanted Hinata to be like Masaki, damn it, if only to fool her into thinking that someone who had become her friend had not died before her eyes.  
  
"Anyway," TenTen said gently, almost sadly, "it sounds like they're having fun. That can't be so bad, you know?"  
  
Not knowing what to say, Hinata remained quiet, but carefully eyed her roommate from the corner of her eyes, wishing that she could do something, say something to erase that haunted look that filled her brown eyes.  
  
--  
  
Asuma lit his cigarette, taking a deep drag as he considered the other three officers before him. The four of them had shared the command of the 121 for two years now, but till now, they had never dealt with a group almost entirely comprised of rookies. It worried Asuma that the children, despite being accepted into the Academy, were not ready. Hell, not even the three who had been with them a year were barely ready for battle and they had seen more action than they should have.  
  
"Don't think so hard."  
  
Asuma smiled at the gentle admonishment from his long time friend and fellow officer Yuuhi Kurenai. She was certainly a war hardened veteran, her clear ruby eyes never confused or anxious even in tough situations. Right now, she was sipping tea that tasted like sewage water that she insisted was good for her health, her pretty face crunching into disgust with every taste.  
  
"So, what do you think of our new soldiers? Promising, aren't they?"  
  
Kurenai sighed and turned to face Gai who had posed the enthusiastic question. That man was always so damned enthusiastic, whether it was about battle or about the lunch menu. When she had first met him two years ago to command the 121, she had been put off by his attitude and his bowl cut hair, but now, it was all very endearing, if not comforting. As long as Gai could be so enthused about everything, the world would not fall off its axis.  
  
"I would say so, yes," replied Kurenai, "but I'm rather worried about.. well, you know."  
  
"You shouldn't. He's just fine."  
  
"Kakashi, do you ever worry about anything?" Kurenai huffed, her exasperation showing rather clearly.  
  
"Not if I can help it." Kakashi replied, his only visible eye twinkling in nonchalant humor.  
  
Asuma chuckled at Kurenai's sour expression and Gai nodded sagely, knowing that this was an old argument. Kakashi just sat and continued reading his book of illicitness, occasionally rubbing his hand against the mask that covered half his face.  
  
"So, you think it's okay having the Demon Bound in our-"  
  
"Kurenai," Kakashi said, his voice mild but somehow dangerous, "he has a name. I believe it's Uzumaki Naruto."  
  
Silence stretched thickly as each pondered the complication in the form of Uzumaki Naruto. None of them knew whether or not he would be a great asset or a great liability, but they would not, could not, sign him out of the war effort.  
  
As the Third Hokage had told them, Naruto could be the key to victory.  
  
Or the last thing anyone ever saw before the world ended.  
  
--  
  
TBC 


	2. Train, Learn, Go

Thanks for the reviews. They make me smile.  
  
Warning: Spoilers, maybe.. but I'm thinking, if you're reading fanfics, you're fairly well versed in Naruto stuff, so you know more than I do. A bit of language, a bit of wordiness and a bit of seriousness on the side for balance. Oh yeah, I don't have beta readers, so there might be an occasional grammar mistake.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I can't even rent it..  
  
----  
  
Chapter 2 Train, Learn, Go.  
  
The only noise in the room came from Akimichi Chouji as he worked his way through the third bag of potato chips for the morning. The constant crunching only served to grate on Shikamaru's nerves and made the headache already nagging at the back of his head come crawling to the forefront. Trying not to resent Chouji, he was a childhood friend of sorts, for his eating habits, Shikamaru turned his malicious glance from the chubby boy's rosy cheeked face to the real culprits who had caused him to have this incredibly bad mood.  
  
However, Shikamaru's deadly glare bounced right off of Naruto and Sasuke who were busy ignoring each other to the point where all they could think about was each other and how much they would like to end the other's miserable existence. Their first night had been an unmitigated disaster with Naruto and Sasuke refusing to go to sleep first. They had basically stayed up all night, yelling insults at each other, and completely ruining Shikamaru's chance of getting any sleep.  
  
If things kept up at this pace, Shikamaru might get off his lazy ass and kill the two of them in a messy and bloody way.  
  
It wasn't only Shikamaru who was annoyed by Naruto and Sasuke's behavior, since their night time insult yelling had also disturbed the sleep of Neji and Lee who had the unfortunate luck to have the room next to theirs. Even though Neji had trained since an early age to ignore all distractions and fall into a peaceful meditative state when required, he had not been able to achieve his nirvana the night before. Of course, it had not helped that Lee had stayed up, listening and rooting for Naruto the whole way.  
  
Therefore, the general atmosphere rocked precariously between annoyance and homicidal rage and the commanding officers took note of it as soon as they entered.  
  
Well, three of them, anyway. Kakashi, as per usual, was nowhere to be seen.  
  
"Let me guess and say no one got a good night's sleep?"  
  
Kurenai's amused voiced pierced through the tense mood in the room and dispersed much of the ill will to the thin air. However, Naruto and Sasuke, who were still in the middle of their heated disagreement, paid her no mind and continued to ignore each other overtly.  
  
"I'm Yuuhi Kurenai," she began pleasantly, "and I'm going to make sure you all survive out there."  
  
That was a promise this time, not a damned hope. She did not want to lose anymore children in this war, especially those that she could protect. These twelve were her soldiers, her charges. They would survive the war intact, even if she had to lay down her life in exchange.  
  
"And I'm Maito Gai!" So bellowed a muscular man in a leotard that should have only been worn by those who aerobicize, "and I will be here for you, if you want to talk, to spar, or to cry in my bosom!"  
  
That caused most of the people in the room to shudder in revulsion, except for Lee who was enthusiastically clapping and cheering him on as fires of joy burned in his eyes.  
  
"Technically, there is a fourth commander," Asuma said when Gai finished posing, "but as you rookies will learn, the man is never on time. For anything."  
  
And so, introductions formally finished, the second day at the Special Academy was spent reviewing the concepts that they had learned in school. The first year veterans Neji, TenTen and Lee listened as well, but it was clear that only Lee was paying any attention. Of the nine rookies, it seemed that everyone was rather enraptured by the lecturing and the explaining, except for Naruto who had begun fidgeting almost immediately and Shikarmaru, who had finally the chance to get some sleep.  
  
They relearned about the basics of all the jutsus, from the ninja arts of ninjutsu, the illusionary art of genjutsu and the physical art of taijutsu. They were told again about the war and its origins, the tactics previously employed by the Sound and its still yet unknown leader, and about the battle of Borderline that had decided everything.  
  
Asuma droned on, punctuated only by Gai and Kurenai's occasional interruptions, about mission assignments and the defense perimeters. Sakura paid attention, despite the fact that she knew everything that was being reviewed; after all, she had been a great student and would be a good soldier. Obviously, she knew that there were five lines of defense, the fifth line being closest to Konoha and being the safest post and the first line being nearest to the Borderline and quite dangerous. She also knew that their two lines of offense were the most dangerous assignments, the death rate in the eighty percent range on average, and only the most elite and well trained battalions went there.  
  
The pink haired girl smiled as the information she already knew was displayed before her capable mind. Wouldn't Sasuke just be so impressed by her intelligence and wouldn't Ino just burn with green envy?  
  
As the officers finished up, a poof in the front of the classroom announced the belated arrival of their final commanding officer.  
  
"Hey, I'm sorry I'm late, but I.." he began, running his right hand through his spiky and unruly silver hair. "You see, I ran into some rabid monkeys and.."  
  
"Monkeys don't live near Konoha."  
  
"Ah, my mistake, Asuma."  
  
Naruto glanced at the new commanding officer and could only conclude that the silver haired one could not be that reliable. Not only was he late by three hours, a feat that not even Shikamaru could claim, this guy also was a terrible liar. The last of the Uchiha clan came to a similar conclusion, only adding that this new commander might be a bigger idiot than his blond roommate.  
  
"Oh, yes, I'm Hatake Kakashi. That's all."  
  
Yep, Sasuke grimaced, this Kakashi was most definitely on par with Naruto.  
  
Just great.  
  
--  
  
"I'm telling you, this room isn't big enough for four people. It's barely enough for three."  
  
"So? I just want to stay here until damned Chouji goes to sleep."  
  
Shikamaru gave up trying to reason with Kiba. What was the point, anyway, since it seemed as if no one bothered to listen to him, most notably, his constantly at-war roommates.  
  
"See," Kiba continued, his dark eyes unblinking and serious, "Chouji isn't a bad guy, but I think he wants to eat Akamaru. He's got that gleam, you know?"  
  
Akamaru, Kiba's faithful companion dog, barked in assent as he burrowed further into Kiba's jacket. The dog and his master had not slept much the night before either, for they had been on Chouji look-out, in order to prevent Akamaru's sudden change in status from dog to stew.  
  
"Kiba, even Chouji wouldn't eat a dog." Shikamaru mumbled as he sat on his bed. "Besides, you don't want to be here when Naruto and Sasuke get here."  
  
"Man, are they as bad as I think they are? I'm surprised Sasuke hasn't murdered Naruto yet for that lap thing."  
  
Shikamaru snorted and lied back on his bed, trying to get comfortable and as close to sleep as possible before the two of them returned. However, Kiba kept on talking, which put a major hindrance in his plans to sleep.  
  
"I still can't see how Naruto made it. Sasuke, sure, he's the damned super genius ninja of the Uchiha clan, all fated to be, but Naruto?"  
  
"Uh huh," replied Shikamaru, still trying to find peace in sleep.  
  
"Naruto can't even do a simple transformation, or even create a clone. All he can do is run off at his mouth."  
  
"Right," mumbled Shikamaru, feeling awfully put out that Kiba would not take the hint and just get out.  
  
"And Naruto just antagonizes Sasuke without even trying. How they hell did those two ever get assigned together?"  
  
"Don't.. care.."  
  
"I'd hate to be in their way when they really start fighting, because Naruto would just get killed." Kiba continued, oblivious to Shikamaru's deep seeded wish to be left alone.  
  
"I wish," he murmured to Kiba's statement, picturing just how quickly Sasuke could flay the blonde's flesh off with a simple ninjutsu.  
  
"Maybe you're right," Kiba said as he made motions to stand, "and I'd better get gone before those two get back."  
  
However, the sentiment came too late, for the dueling pair burst open the door at that exact moment, both of them holding their toothbrushes like kunais. After a brief struggle at the doorway that could not accommodate both of them at once, they barreled right over Kiba who happened to be sitting in the only pathway available to the beds.  
  
'Oh, here we go again,' thought Shikamaru as he sighed once more. At least it looked like Kiba and Akamaru would get some rest tonight, seeing as how Naruto and Sasuke's rampage into the room had completely knocked the dog- boy senseless. Besides, neither the blond nor the Uchiha had noticed that they had run someone over, so busy they were with their rivalry.  
  
Sighing again more out of habit than actual frustration, Shikamaru buried his head into the pillow and wished that he could knock himself out as well.  
  
--  
  
Perhaps the new soldiers of the 121 did not quite know that wars meant death and misery, or maybe they were still enamored by the romantic quality of a battle that they read about in books. Whatever the case, of the nine rookies, most of them were itching for action, some to prove that they were strong, some to relieve boredom, and some to experience what they had trained so hard for.  
  
However, the commanding officers were somewhat relieved that for the first three weeks with the newly formed 121, no new mission orders had come through. Sure, they were somewhat dismayed that they were safe in Konoha while their fellow officers and soldiers were off dying on the blood soaked fields just beyond the massive walls, but they could not help but feel lucky that they had not been forced to send these fifteen and sixteen year olds to kill and be killed. They would appreciate it as long as it could last, because when the first battle came, it would change them all.  
  
Hadn't Neji, TenTen and Lee already learned that harsh lesson?  
  
The three weeks were not wasted, every spare moment devoted to strengthening their soldier's abilities and mental stamina. The four of them had divided the group of twelve into threes according to their skills and school scores, and had trained them to an inch of their life.  
  
Kakashi, ever the nonchalant one, had chosen to train the group consisting of Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura. He knew that Sasuke and Naruto absolutely despised each other and considered the other a rival of sorts. The reason that he requested those two on the same team had been so that their rivalry would spring them beyond what each could achieve alone and it had paid off in spades. Those two developed astronomically, Sasuke learning jutsus that only the higher ups could use and Naruto becoming unbelievably strong. Sakura, the poor girl, had not the strength of chakra to keep up with either of them, but she was a bright one. Kakashi enjoyed furthering her knowledge on genjutsu and medical arts, knowing that she would never forget what had been told her once.  
  
He knew that if anything amazing was to happen, it would come from the three he had trained so mercilessly. It had to, didn't it, what with the last of the Uchiha with his yet undiscovered Sharingan eyes and the Demon Bound with powers to match the gods under his tutelage.  
  
It irked him that in the three weeks he had trained them that neither the Sharingan nor the power of the Demon had emerged, but he was a patient man. He was sure that if he trained them more, their innate talents would surface and their chances of survival would increase. Hell, if those two could manage to master their latent powers, it was entirely possible that the war could finally end.  
  
Or at least, the Third Hokage thought that about Naruto. But Kakashi was willing to bet that if similar hopes were placed on Sasuke, he would not disappoint.  
  
But all his hopes of training them until they discovered their powers went down the drain when at the end of the three weeks, mission orders came down. Battalion 121 would go off to the fifth line of defense and support the teams already there for the month ahead.  
  
A month on the battlefield. A month in which the entire battalion could once again be wiped out, for so much promise to be blown out like a wispy candle light in a hurricane.  
  
--  
  
The wind ruffled his already messy hair and swept over him in a cleansing brush. The 121 had finally received orders and though it was to the fifth line, probably the safest place on the war front, it was still something other than sitting in the safety of Konoha training. It was what they had trained for, wasn't it, to go out into war and hopefully put a big enough dent in Sound's forces for at least a cease fire?  
  
Besides, Naruto felt stronger than ever. When he had first stepped into the Special Academy, he had promised himself that he would be stronger, better than what he had been. He would improve in every way possible, and he had been successful beyond his expectations. Granted, the damned genius of all things jutsu Sasuke had overshadowed him with his quick learning and easy mastery over things that even the higher level ninjas could not handle, but he had his own strengths. He was stronger, for one, and had what Kakashi had called an idiotic amount of chakra and physical stamina.  
  
Then there was Kakashi, the one both he and Sasuke had written off as a total loser. Not only did they change their minds about him being a loser and a weakling minutes after their training began, but they both genuinely respected the man's intelligence and strength. He was a monster, really, his chakra level so much higher than anyone else they'd ever met and his mastery over jutsus was something of a miracle. Sakura had told them, or Sasuke while Naruto eavesdropped, that Kakashi was the master of over a thousand jutsus according to records she had researched. Certainly, their silver haired, masked commander was a man to be reckoned with.  
  
Even if his hobby was reading a book too dirty for him to even show them a sentence out of it.  
  
Kakashi had made him stronger, that was for sure. Though it had ticked off the blond that Kakashi seemed more interested in Sasuke than him, he still could not argue that the one eyed pervert genius had helped him improve far beyond his original expectations. At least, he could be thankful for that, for in three weeks, Kakashi had made him and Sasuke better ninjas than all those years in school had.  
  
So here he was, stronger and better, before going off to war, standing on the highest point in Konoha looking down at the city that was his home. Ten years ago, when everyone had evacuated to Konoha, Naruto had been so afraid that he would have been left behind. After all, he was an orphan, no one to call family, and ever since he could remember, he had been fending for his own. Then he had been picked up into the gentle arms of the Third Hokage who had personally carried him back to Konoha and made sure that he survived.  
  
The blond knew that no one liked him, even now. He knew that almost every adult he looked at viewed him as something less than human, but he never let it get to him. What other people felt about him, he could not really help. All he could do was make sure they paid attention to him, so that he would not be left behind, so that he would not be forgotten. So what if everyone in Konoha, with the possible exception of the Hokage old man and Iruka, hated him down to the core? At least they wouldn't be forgetting any time soon.  
  
Therefore, even if everyone hated him, Naruto did not mind going off to war. In fact, he relished in this chance given to him, so that he may prove himself to the people of Konoha that he was not so worthless. He could do things well, damn it, and he would damn well show them.  
  
"Eleven hours till deployment, huh. What to do.."  
  
Naruto sat, his chin perched on his hands, as he looked around Konoha from the top of the monuments. No one was supposed to be up here, of course, this place was off limits to just about everyone, but he had wanted a panoramic view of his home before he went outside the walls. And the only place he could do it was on top of the monument of the four Hokages carved in massive relief into the rock face that served as the town's rear wall.  
  
If someone scolded him, so what? He'd be long gone before they could finish lecturing, fighting off a horde of war crazed Sound ninjas with his awesome powers.  
  
His blue eyes glazed as he pictured himself in the throes of heroics. It featured him as the main character, the badass ninja, and it involved the thrashing of several hundreds, maybe even thousands of Sound ninjas, his unfortunate opponents, or rather, victims. And, as icing on the cake, one Uchiha Sasuke took the title role as the helpless injured comrade that he would rescue. Ah yes, it was beautiful in his little world until it was rudely interrupted by a snort.  
  
"So this is where you ran off to."  
  
Shit, of course with his luck, it had to be Sasuke standing there with that goddamned superior smirk on his face. Hadn't they already annoyed each other enough during the last three weeks as they competed against each other in order to be better? Hadn't Naruto spent many nights unable to sleep in anticipation of some surprise attack from his dark haired rival? Hadn't Sasuke already called him every word synonymous with idiot currently available in the lexicon?  
  
In three weeks, he had seen more of Sasuke than anyone else, training with him by day and sleeping in the same room at night. They wrangled at each other, insulted, and yelled, or at least, Naruto yelled while Sasuke spat out various sarcastic remarks. Kakashi had told them if it weren't for the spitting animosity shooting out of their eyes every time they happen to be near each other, they would be mistaken for a married couple and that had earned Kakashi an attempt on his life from two irate boys.  
  
It would seem, then, logically anyway, the day before battle, a day that their commanding officers had given them as a free day to do as they wished, Sasuke would not put 'find Naruto and bother the shit out him' on his to-do list.  
  
But no, Sasuke was there, still smirking at him. Naruto's left eye began ticking rather ominously, but the dark haired ninja paid it no heed. After all, if he was intimidated by a bit of brow ticking, he had no business going off to war, now did he?  
  
"How did you find me?" Naruto asked, his irritation clear in his posture and his tone. The irritation climbed another notch when Sasuke's smirk only got bigger and the hated rival dared to sit down next to him.  
  
"Chakra locating," Sasuke replied smugly, "which is easy when your target is too incompetent to smother his signature."  
  
"Shut up, asshole. I'm not incompetent, I'm just not doing it because we're in Konoha."  
  
How Sasuke could convey a world of contempt through a snort was a mystery to Naruto, but damn it, he could do it.  
  
"Don't let your guard down, ever, you idiot. You're going to end up dead the minute we get to battle with your attitude."  
  
Naruto narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the boy sitting next to him. If it had not been Sasuke saying it, it might have sounded almost like concern.  
  
"Don't piss me off, okay?" Naruto said, turning his eyes back on the view of Konoha below him.  
  
"Why not? It's so damned easy."  
  
"Because," the blond replied, his voice uncharacteristically gentle, "I want to see Konoha peacefully, in case. Just in case."  
  
For the first time in their acquaintance, Naruto had spoken to him without the taint of malice or anger in his voice and that threw Sasuke for a loop. He had figured when he set out to find Naruto that he would get a good stress relief by arguing with his loud mouthed roommate, but apparently, that was not to be. Instead, he was faced with a quiet boy who was thinking serious thoughts.  
  
"Don't say that," Sasuke answered just as gently, "because we'll come back. The only one who can kill you is me. I reserve that right as the one that you piss off the most."  
  
"Yeah, I guess. I'd feel cheated if anyone other than me killed you, asshole."  
  
So, the two sat on top of the monument of the four greatest ninjas of Fire country, looking out into the sunset coloring the landscape orange, and found some companionable silence and understanding.  
  
--  
  
Five in the morning, an hour usually designated for sleep or illegal activities, was the time that Battalion 121 gathered in the hall of the Special Academy, every single one of them awake and armed. As per instructions, they were all in the assigned dark colored uniform, their pouches, filled with shuriken and kunai, strapped to their legs and back, and their forehead protectors with the symbol of Konoha tied to various places on their bodies. Asuma gave a quick prayer to whichever god that still cared to bring them all back at the end of the month none too worse for wear, and Kurenai smiled encouragingly at her flock of young soldiers. They left the inspirational speech to Gai who was going at it full swing, his loud and strident voice echoing off the walls of the hall.  
  
Of course, Kakashi was nowhere to be seen, but he would be along. Even if he was a chronic retard about punctuality, he was one of the best in the ninja army of Konoha. He would never miss a battle, especially not with so many children being rookies.  
  
Naruto felt his hands shake in anticipation as he checked and rechecked all of his equipment. Although he felt vaguely uncomfortable in the newly issued uniform of entirely too many dark colors, he figured it had to be better than his usual orange jumpsuit. Kakashi was right, if he went to battle in glaring orange, he might as well as paint a bulls-eye on his ass and ask for Sound ninjas to use him for target practice.  
  
He looked around him and saw that all his battalion mates were in similar condition as he, somewhere between anticipation and crippling fear. Well, except for the three veterans of their group. They seemed to be more composed, but they had already seen action, already been through all this. Still, Lee was fired up, his eyes twin dark pools of fighting spirit underneath those impossibly thick eyebrows, while Neji was more reserved, only clenching his fist to show that he was ready. TenTen seemed withdrawn, but Naruto hardly knew her, so he could not judge whether or not she was ready for battle.  
  
Then there was Sasuke, of course, the ice prince himself, not even showing that he was excited or scared or anything. His rival stood next to him, composed as ever, his dark eyes empty of emotions that he knew was burning a hole through his baby blues. What was up with that?  
  
"We're all here," Naruto heard Gai say, "to fight for Konoha and our future. Be brave, be stupendous, and be alive."  
  
With that, Battalion 121 filed out of the hall to march onto the battle field.  
  
-- TBC -- 


	3. Discovery of Something More

Thank you for lovely reviews. I'll try not to disappoint as the story runs along its strange little path.  
  
A word of warning: This is about when some characters may seem OOC, just because it's an AU and I have a twisted sense of viewing them. There is some blood, a strange interlude and overly long sentences ahead. Read with caution lest you be struck blind.  
  
Small Disclaimer: Not that it's really needed, since everyone must know I don't own Naruto. But legal mumbo-jumbo aside.. I'm just playing with the characters for my own strange amusement.  
  
Discovery of Something More  
  
Explosions, random sprays of arterial blood, wayward flying body parts and screams of the horribly injured. Those were things that Naruto had expected to see when he arrived with his battalion at the fifth line of defense, north west sector at point two-seven. Yet, what he did see was a bunch of ninjas sitting around a clearing in the forest playing five card draw with their shuriken as chips.  
  
"Uh, Kakashi," Naruto frowned up at his commander, "are we at the right place?"  
  
What might have been an affirmative grunt escaped through Kakashi's face mask as he wandered into the clearing, his hands at his side as if he was taking a stroll in the park. He greeted some of the card players with slaps to their shoulders and a few words, and soon, the other commanding officers joined in on the greeting ceremony that was both foreign and disturbing to the highly strung out members of the 121.  
  
"Say, Lee," Shikamaru spoke, his voice a study of puzzlement, "is this how it's supposed to be?"  
  
"It's hard to say. Every reception is different. The last time we were sent out, it was to the third line and the ninjas were playing tag."  
  
This sent a quiet wave of murmurs through the 121 as each ninja wondered if those in battle were all quirky and mystifyingly odd or if it was just the ones they had encountered. Who in their right minds played games in the battle field?  
  
"They are sentries," came the calm voice of Neji as he looked over at the group still engrossed in greeting and cards. "They alert us if the enemy broke through the previous lines. The ninjas you don't see are the real important ones. You can say, the ones you see goofing off.. They're the bait."  
  
That put things in perspective and an 'oh' of understanding swept through the group. Now, the card game didn't seem so stupid or misplaced, but necessary and more dangerous than the actual fighting. They were there in the open, leaving themselves vulnerable to attack so that those not visible could have a better chance of annihilating the incoming enemy forces.  
  
It was a hard gamble, a harsh tactic. It was more frightening than flying body parts.  
  
"Welcome to the war, children," Kakashi whispered softly.  
  
--  
  
Sasuke sat quietly on his assigned tree branch, hidden deeply in the foliage and the moonless night. His duty tonight was as the second shift watch and he would be damned pissed if anyone got through his perimeter. He had already set up various alarm signals and his body was a tightly prepared machine, ready to spring into action at any time. In fact, he welcomed some form of infiltration effort, because he was definitely tired of waiting. Despite his cool façade and uncaring demeanor, he was looking forward to engaging the enemy.  
  
Only then could he see how much stronger he had truly gotten. Only then could he see if he measured up to the murdering, traitorous bastard, the one he had once called brother.  
  
A very small disturbance in the wind had him alert and in position before the unfortunate soul who had crossed his perimeter could even blink. Sasuke quickly jumped behind the intruder and grabbed him by his throat with his left hand while his right one placed the pointy end of the kunai to the jumping pulse at his jugular. There had been no noise and very little waste of motion.  
  
All in all, an efficient and effective collaring of an enemy agent.  
  
"Can't.. breathe.."  
  
Or.. an efficient and effective collaring of a complete idiot.  
  
"Naruto.." Sasuke ground out through his gritted teeth, keeping his voice down to a whisper but still conveying a world of anger, "why are you here?"  
  
"Peeing.. Duh.. Let me.. Go.."  
  
Oh, yes, he still had the dead last idiot boy in a death hold, didn't he. Loosening his grip but not letting go altogether, Sasuke once again asked in a very low voice, "Why are you here, peeing? This is the perimeter."  
  
"You see," the blond one answered just as softly, "my watch is in an hour, I couldn't sleep, thought I'd pee and take over since I'm on right after you."  
  
Strangling back the string of swear words threatening to burst from his lips, Sasuke let go of Naruto completely and stepped back, holstering his kunai back into its rightful place. Only the overly zealous idiot Naruto would venture out into the perimeter in complete darkness in the middle of a battle field to go relieve himself.  
  
"Go back," Sasuke whispered, "I don't need to be replaced before my shift is up."  
  
"No way, nah, no thanks. I'm staying. I'm too damned wired to go back to sleep."  
  
Maybe it was the obstinate tone or the way Naruto stood with his arms crossed and his back to the dark haired soldier. Whatever the reason, Sasuke knew that Naruto would not go back without a fight and that meant a whole load of noises that a secretly placed watch could not afford.  
  
'Damned stubborn fool,' thought Sasuke before he jumped back onto his perch on the tree, opting to ignore Naruto. He said nothing as his blond roommate jumped up next to him and crouched. He knew if there had been enough light to see by, he would see the perpetually annoying blond with that grin of 'I won, heh heh' on his face. If he was not such a restrained and well reserved man, Sasuke would have stuck his tongue out at his rival.  
  
So they crouched on the same branch, keeping watch until the sun started to rise on the eastern horizon. Sasuke had refused to go back to camp once his shift was up since Naruto had so rudely barged in on him, and he'd be damned if he gave the blond boy the satisfaction of seeing him retreat into the relative safety of the camp. He'd stick it out and show that good for nothing that he was entirely much better than him.  
  
Yet, all thoughts of rivalry and irritation left him as he watched the rose and oranges bleed into the cobalt blue of the retreating night sky. Then all he could think was that the sunrise was beautiful. He had not seen it rise over anything other than the thick walls of Konoha in a very long time, so to see it peek over the trees was something to behold. The colors were spectacular, and for a moment, Sasuke forgot that he was in the line of fire, keeping watch with the idiot rival by his side.  
  
"Hey, Naruto," Sasuke said finally, "your shift and mine are over. We should get back."  
  
When he got no response, he turned his dark eyes to the crouched form of the blond. What he saw was the morning sun glinting off his golden hair, giving him an unearthly glow around his head that resembled a halo. It blinded him for a moment, this dance of light among the strands of Naruto's hair, and he nearly reached forward to touch, to see if it could possibly be as warm as it looked. Thankfully, he came to his senses before he could commit that act of stupidity and realized that Naruto was sound asleep.  
  
'How the hell can he sleep crouched on a tree limb? That's some balance.'  
  
It surprised Sasuke that he felt no resentment towards Naruto for being asleep during his designated watch. He felt no anger that the blond had failed in his first given duty in the battle field, he felt no need to wake him up and make fun of him for the rest of the day. Instead, he just wanted to watch the peaceful scene for a while longer, like the way the morning light played in Naruto's hair and how he slept on blissfully with a smile on his face.  
  
The sun crept a little higher in the sky, the glowing hues of sunrise overtaken by the glaring rays of day, but Sasuke did not see the transition. He kept watching Naruto as he slept, not noticing that his face had softened into a smile. Sasuke watched until Naruto blearily opened his eyes, revealing the sleep laden blue orbs to the world. When those eyes focused, Sasuke smirked and tipped Naruto on the shoulder lightly as a good morning of sorts. He had meant it as a friendly thing, really he had, but Naruto must have been still half asleep and Sasuke stronger than he thought, because that gentle tap was all it took for Naruto to fall out of the tree to land in an undignified heap on the forest floor.  
  
In surprise, Sasuke stared at the form face down at the base of the tree cursing his name to the high heavens. Then the last of the Uchiha did something he had not done in a very long time - he laughed.  
  
--  
  
Something suspicious was going on, she knew it. She could smell it in the air as soon as Naruto barged into the campsite covered in dirt and twigs, muttering under his breath about treacherous assholes. Her suspicion only heightened when shortly thereafter, Sasuke, her prince, her dream boy, came into the camp via the same way Naruto had, chuckling behind his raised hand.  
  
Since when did Sasuke chuckle? And why was it that he was doing it now?  
  
Sakura trained her green eyes on the chortling Uchiha heir as he made his way across the camp site, using the full power of her intellect to see if something indeed was going on. It had to be, of course, why else was her woman's intuition going crazy?  
  
She did recall that when she had returned from her watch, she had not seen Sasuke or Naruto in the camp. Not seeing Naruto had not been a big surprise since he had been assigned to watch duty after her shift, but Sasuke, he had the same one as her. She had planned during her watch to corner Sasuke as he returned from his watch and charm him with her intelligence and poise. But alas, she had not found him last night and had fallen asleep rather disappointed. Then in the morning, the first thing she saw had to be Naruto thundering across the camp like a herd of cattle followed by her crush.  
  
Had they spent the night together?  
  
That thought brought a barrage of images that she most certainly did not appreciate parading through her head and she cut off that disturbing train of thought quickly. Of course they had not been anywhere near each other, they absolutely despised each other. How many times had she heard Naruto complain about Sasuke during their three week marathon training? How many times had she seen Sasuke call the blond an idiot or derivation thereof? There was no way those two could spend time together without getting into some sort of a fight. Therefore, as logic dictated, if they had spent time last night within a mile of each other, the whole camp would have woken up from Naruto's screaming antics.  
  
Yes, no doubt about that.  
  
Still, something was damned suspicious.  
  
--  
  
"So, not much action around here for the past few weeks."  
  
For that, Kurenai was glad. Her worries about sending her soldiers into death lessened as she heard the report from the commander of battalion 448 who had been here for the last three months. As far as she could gather from his precise account of what has been happening for the past few months, there had not been any attacks worth a mention for a while now. It seemed that the enemies were all stopped well before they reached even the third line of defense, and for that, she was grateful.  
  
"We're slowly gaining ground. Not enough to notice at first, but we are."  
  
Asuma readily agreed with 448's commander. Not a month ago, hadn't he lost most of 121 at the third line? But it seemed now, very few even breached the second line. It was fortunate that the tides of war so long against them seemed to be turning in their favor.  
  
"They may have more ninjas," proclaimed Gai, "but we have better quality ones!"  
  
Asuma smiled and agreed silently. When he had trained his rookie soldiers, he had not been expecting too much out of them. However, they had surprised him in those three weeks, most especially Shikamaru. From his scores and attitude, Asuma had assumed that Shikamaru was a lazy boy who had no special talents. Sure, his father was one of the top commanders at the first line and was a master shadow manipulator, but Asuma had only seen that Shikamaru had inherited the lazy gene from his illustrious father.  
  
That was quickly amended when Asuma had found out that Shikamaru, despite being lazy and a top notch complainer, was a freaking genius. It wasn't that Shikamaru knew how to do all the jutsus or even cared to learn most of them, but the boy had a brain on him. He was a strategist, a masterful tactician, the kind which came along only every hundred years or so. One of these days, Shikamaru would become a great general and leader, planning victories in his head well before the battle.  
  
Yes, indeed, they had some quality ninjas.  
  
It wasn't only Shikamaru that impressed, however. From the way Kurenai had been talking, Hinata had as much potential as her cousin, Neji. They both possessed the Byakugan, and although Neji had more talent in utilizing that special ability, Hinata knew how to manipulate it well enough so that it worked in her favor. Kurenai's only complaint about her was that she had very low self confidence that prevented her from improving faster, but knowing her, she would do something about Hinata's problem.  
  
Then there was the super rookie soldier, Uchiha Sasuke and the Demon Bound, Uzumaki Naruto. Kakashi had told him that even though neither had discovered their true powers, they were both incredibly talented and strong in their own way. Asuma had listened in disbelief, of course, since Naruto had never shown any promise to be a capable ninja. Sasuke, okay, he definitely could see how the last of the Uchiha would improve so drastically in such a short period of time, but Naruto? If he had not been the Demon Bound, he would not have made it into the Special Academy.  
  
But Kakashi assured him that Naruto was not only capable, but very resilient and resourceful. The one visible eye had been utterly serious about Naruto's capabilities, and it had somewhat shocked Asuma when Kakashi told him that even without Naruto tapping into the power of the Demon within him, he could still serve as the key to victory as the Third Hokage wished.  
  
If he could only believe that.  
  
Maybe there was no need to rely on the Demon Bound or any of the children. After all, the enemy seemed to be retreating a bit further each day, hardly denting the wall of their second line. The war might end before the children saw any action at this rate, a prospect that lifted Asuma's burdened heart, and then there would be no need to discuss whose powers were greater, who was a lynchpin to victory and who should be sacrificed.  
  
Yet, fate would not be so kind or so understanding. Despite Asuma's fervent wish that the war be over, despite Kurenai's wish that the children be spared the blood and the gore, even despite all the reports that said that the Sound's attacks were lessening and weakening, war would descend on Battalion 121 like vultures to a corpse.  
  
--  
  
It is a known fact in the universe that when there is a surprise attack, it is supposed to happen at night when people are supposedly off guard and there is a cover of shadows. However, the Sound infiltration unit felt no need to abide by such well established rules of warfare and attacked the fifth line of defense full out on the third day after the 121 arrived.  
  
Naruto was just taking a small break between the two birch trees that stood at the edge of the camp when a loud explosion rocked the earth and sent him pitching sideways into a protruding knob of root on the ground. For an instant, Naruto saw stars dancing before his eyes, then there was too much going on for him to pay attention to the blood seeping from his temple.  
  
Pandemonium followed that earth shaking boom and the entire camp, the ones that were playing cards, the ones taking a short nap, every single one of them, jumped into the air to engage the enemy that seemed to seep out of the forest like slime through a sieve. Shuriken flew through the air in silvery arcs, some hitting soft tissue and some getting deflected by the quick hands of the Konoha ninjas. Fire flamed from various directions, some in straight lines towards an enemy, some forming into animal shapes before running after a group of infiltrators. Then there were the sounds from hand to hand combat, from kunai scraping against bone, from hands ripping off flesh and from fingers displacing internal organs with jutsus. Naruto had never seen anything like it, and even though he was only immobile for two to three seconds after the initial explosion, as he watched the blurring scenes of combat around him, bodies started falling from the treetops.  
  
The first crunch of a body not a foot away from him startled Naruto into action, making his rubbery legs gather and forcing them to run towards an enemy. But the enemies were so fast, he could barely see one as they flitted by him. His eyes could not keep up, not with these ninjas that had to be on an entirely different level than he.  
  
'Shit, shit, shit! What the hell is going on?'  
  
Panic nipped at Naruto's mind, sinking its sharp teeth into the tenuous grip on sanity he had. He could hardly see the enemies, the only comrades he saw were on the ground dead or gasping out their last. The forest was on fire, burning and choking his lungs, blinding his already blurry eyes, and he couldn't find his way to safety, to an enemy, to anything.  
  
Not knowing where he was going, not knowing when he might have to stand and fight, Naruto ran along the forest, afraid to call out the names of his fellow soldiers in the battalion. Where were they, any of them, they couldn't have already died, could they? And why were there so many enemies at the fifth line? By the time the Sound could get this far, their numbers should have dwindled to a manageable level by the first four lines and even if they weren't, they should have heard something way before such a massive force got to them.  
  
So many thoughts jumbled through his mind, running circles around his overloaded brain, and he forgot to pay attention to the things around him. Perhaps that was why he stumbled over a rock and fell forward as a kunai whizzed through the air where his head been only a moment before to sink into the tree just in front of his face.  
  
'Not good,' Naruto thought as he pivoted on his hands to face whatever was behind him. He was ready, wasn't he, to deal with anything the Sound had to throw at him? He had trained very hard and become pretty damned good at fighting. He could take down a few Sound ninjas by himself, if he could only remember what it was that he had learned during his training.  
  
What he saw before him wasn't just a few Sound ninjas. Before his panicked blue eyes stood at least ten or so of the enemy, all of them wearing the symbol of the Sound on their uniforms, their eyes glinting with murderous malice. One of them stepped forward and kicked him in the face before he could even process all the information, sending his body to slam into a tree, knocking the air out of him.  
  
"Well, a kid, is it? I knew Konoha was doing badly, but this is priceless."  
  
Gasping, Naruto stood on his unsteady legs, clutching his stomach as he tried to get breath back into his lungs. The one who had spoken, his eyes the only thing visible above his scarf, was looking at him with a raised eyebrow, twirling a kunai in his hand. Yes, there were ten of them. Ten. A number that exceeded his expectations, a number he should not hope to defeat by himself.  
  
'Damn, I'm pretty much fucked.'  
  
Letting out a half a laugh at his situation, Naruto got into the fighting stance that Kakashi had taught him. Somehow, the terrifying panic that had encased his mind faded away at the sight of enemies before him. His heart no longer beat like a trapped bird and his breath no longer hitched in his chest. Thoughts that had confused and frightened him before receded to the back of his mind as his eyes took stock of the situation. A wall of ninjas stood before him, armed to the teeth, and a forest filled with fire stood behind him. There was no retreat. He had only one option. Here and now, he would stand and fight.  
  
Naruto quickly gathered his chakra and launched into the midst of the Sound ninjas, his fists finding flesh and bone. His leg caught yet another by his throat and slammed him into the ground, then he twisted his body so that his other leg kicked out at the ninja approaching him from the left. All this happened in a split second, just before the enemy could gather their senses and counter him.  
  
He landed painfully on his ankles after his first wave of attack, and got ready for a second round by crouching, his hands dipping into his pouches for kunai and shuriken. However, the enemy surrounding him had recovered, and with a snort of amusement, one of them planted his fist into Naruto's solar plexus, sending him skidding across the rough ground.  
  
Coughing blood and feeling a rib creak in protest, Naruto stood. He'd be damned if he died here, no matter how many Sound ninjas were looking at him like a trussed pig. The main problem was the number. He knew that if there were only two or three, he would be able to eke out a win. With ten, though, he'd need a few more of his blond self to pull out of this mess.  
  
More of him? His eyes widened as a thought occurred to him. Of course! There was one thing he could do to even the odds, after all. Sure, it was something that he had been forbidden to do by the Third Hokage himself even before he had gotten into the Special Academy, but he would prefer to get yelled at by the old man than to kick the bucket.  
  
"Let's go, you bastards!" Naruto yelled as his fingers formed the seals to the one jutsu that he had mastered, "Shadow Replication!"  
  
--  
  
Ignoring the stinging pain in his arm, Sasuke jumped to the side to avoid the water jutsu that sailed through the air. The spout of water formed by the Sound ninja hit the ground just to the left of him, spraying dirt and grass everywhere. As soon as he found purchase on the ground, Sasuke reached into his pouch, pulled out several shuriken and threw them at the ninja who had yet to recover from performing the jutsu and nailed him in the neck and the chest.  
  
Without making sure that he was dead, Sasuke ran again, knowing that there were more enemies than allies in these woods. So far, he had killed three, or was it four, he wasn't too sure, and still, he had not seen anyone from his battalion. What the hell were they all doing? He briefly wondered where Naruto was, grimacing as he did, for it would not be at all like that idiot to miss out on the action.  
  
A sudden mass that appeared before him tried to take his head off with a sword, but Sasuke skillfully dodged and planted his foot into its stomach as he spun. Without pausing, he quickly formed seals with his hands and let out a breath of flame right into the face of the Sound ninja who had dared to attack him. Sasuke hardly heard the muffled scream as he jumped out of the way before the smell of burning flesh could hit his nose. Then he was running again, looking around him for enemies and allies, his hands ready for anything that they had to throw at him.  
  
Something pink fluttered in his peripheral view and being the genius that he is, he knew it to be Sakura. He saw a dark figure in pursuit of her, so he quickly changed directions to where she was running. Sakura was smart, but she wasn't exactly the best soldier. If he didn't help her, she would die, no question.  
  
When he caught up to her, he saw her standing with her back to a wall of fire licking ever closer to her pink hair, kunai in front of her body in a classic stance. Yet, despite her form, he could see the shaking of her arms, the unshed tears in her eyes and the desperate hitching of her chest. When the Sound ninja jumped into the air towards her, Sasuke jumped as well, and positioned himself in front of Sakura before the enemy could land. He felt his arm flex and tense as he blocked the hit that could have crushed Sakura's head in, and kneed him in the weak spot just beneath the sternum. Sasuke finished him off with a fist into his larynx, crunching the man's throat, and then swiftly kicked the body away.  
  
"You okay?" Sasuke asked without turning around, surveying the area around them for more enemies. His eyes burned strangely, and had been for a while; but, he would not risk missing an enemy attacking him because of the damned smoke searing into his eyes.  
  
But then again, his vision was not blurry nor was it hard to see in any way. In fact, in the last fight during Sakura's rescue, he had been able to see the movements of the enemy so much better, almost as if he could anticipate how the Sound ninja would move even before he did.  
  
"Damn it, can you talk?" Sasuke turned and asked irritably, hoping that Sakura was okay and not incoherent with fear. She had to keep moving to survive, as he did, and he could not afford to have a dead weight with him. She merely stared at him, her jaw slightly agape, and he wondered if he really had to carry her.  
  
"Sasuke," he heard Sakura say finally, "your eyes.."  
  
"What of them? Come on, we have to get moving."  
  
With one arm, he pulled up the shell shocked girl up to her feet and started tugging her along with him. She followed, her feet moving on their own accord, as her mind tried to make sense of what she had seen just then.  
  
"Your eyes," she continued, her voice soft but still audible, "they're.. red."  
  
"Yeah," Sasuke replied, his eyes busy scanning the area and his feet moving faster with each step, "it's all the smoke. Can't help it."  
  
"No, no, that's not it. Your irises.. they are red. Sasuke, your eye color is red!"  
  
That made Sasuke pause suddenly, causing Sakura to run into his back with a thump. He did not notice, nor did he even feel her as she clung to his shirt. The only thing running through his mind was that his eyes were red. Red. And he could see things so much better. Red eyes.  
  
Sharingan.  
  
"About god damned time," Sasuke muttered and felt his lips lift into a vicious smirk.  
  
--  
  
TBC  
  
-- 


	4. Fighting Against the Grain

The reviews have been quite lovely and encouraging. Here's another chapter, so let me know if you like it or hate it or whatever else you feel. Oh yes, as for "121".. I'm a gundam wing 1x2x1 fanatic, what can I say.. GW is my first fandom and well, I can't help but insert them wherever..  
  
Warning: Most definite OOC now.. maybe some grammar mistakes I have not caught. Bit of violence, insertion of odd interactions.  
  
Fighting Against the Grain  
  
Gai and Kakashi stood back to back, ignoring the pile of corpses littered at their feet as more Sound soldiers rushed at them. They worked in unison, killing the enemies quickly and efficiently, but it was far from quiet work. Gai was too busy bellowing out the number of the enemies that he had masterfully dispatched.  
  
"Ah ha! Fourteen! And you shall make fifteen!"  
  
And then the laughing, followed by the manly yawping..  
  
Kakashi wondered if his fighting partner thought he was in a battle or in a stage production.  
  
'I wonder how the kids are doing,' Kakashi thought as he swiped his kunai across the throat of one of the enemies who stupidly got too close. 'I know this is too much for them, but, they can do this. They have to.'  
  
The silver haired commander of the 121 fought more viciously as he thought of those youngsters in his command. He was pinned here with Gai, and they could not afford to be here, immobilized by these ninjas, while his soldiers were fighting for their lives. Yes, he had hopes that Sasuke and Naruto would get stronger in battle, but he had thought that he would be there to help them through it. Instead, he had no idea where they were, how they were doing.  
  
All he could do was fight the best he could, believe in the abilities of his soldiers, and hope for their survival.  
  
--  
  
Sasuke burst into the clearing with Sakura just behind him, ready to once again jump into a fight. How long he and the girl had run, he had no idea. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, but that did not matter. They were still alive and relatively uninjured, which was more than he could say for all the numerous numbers of the Sound ninjas they had encountered so far. True, Sakura had not helped any, but she had not hindered him much either. She had stayed out of the way when an enemy appeared, making sure that Sasuke could fight without worrying about her. She had kept up with the mad dash pace that Sasuke had set without complaint as well.  
  
Therefore, when they heard a gurgling scream just to the east of them, they had both run towards it unhesitatingly, knowing that someone from their side was fighting against the enemy in a heated battle.  
  
So when they ran into the clearing with weapons out and bodies ready to move in any direction, they had expected to run into a significant number of enemies. Instead, they encountered a sight that was so surreal and startling that their limbs froze from the scene laid out before them.  
  
First of all, there were Narutos. Not one as they had come to expect, but multiples of that blond idiot. Plural.  
  
And they were all fighting viciously, each of them yelling out something that might have been a battle yell or a garbled insult as they threw themselves into action. More miraculous than the fact that Naruto had multiplied was that these boys were actually winning.  
  
Bodies of Sound ninjas lay on the ground, some dead and others severely wounded, and the last two standing seemed to be on the verge of collapse. They were barely blocking the numerous hits that several Narutos were inflicting upon them, unable to go on the offensive due to the sheer number of the blond.  
  
Sasuke watched, his red eyes flaring, as many Narutos gleefully beat up on the remaining ninjas. His Sharingan, his long awaited birth right, saw what Sakura's eyes could not. He could see the flare of chakra around each and every one of the Naruto copies, as if they were all real people. This was not just a replication jutsu they had all learned, because these were real bodies. They were not mere illusions to fool the enemy before one attacked from a blind spot. These bodies had solidity, chakra, and thinking processes, if Naruto even possessed such a trait.  
  
When the last of the ninjas fell, all the Narutos before his eyes evaporated into thin air, disappearing in a cloud of pale smoke, every single one of them smiling triumphantly. Then there was only one left, the true Naruto, his smile showing his teeth and his blue eyes fierce. Blood spotted him in random places, gashes ripped into his uniform bared the tanned skin beneath, and dirt covered him just about everywhere.  
  
'Naruto.. you look.. so..'  
  
Sasuke did not finish that thought, and shook his head to clear it out of his head for good measure. For a moment, he had been so moved, his chest tight and his breath trapped somewhere between his throat and stomach. Why he would have such a reaction to his rival was a mystery and it disturbed him on a level he had not thought possible.  
  
"Yo, Sasuke," he heard the overly self-satisfied blond say, "wasn't that the shit? I am so good, oh yeah."  
  
He stood still while the widely grinning Naruto walked toward him and Sakura. No, not walk, but strutted, his chest puffed out and his arms swinging at his side confidently.  
  
"Did you see, did you see? I kicked so much ass."  
  
The dark haired boy had nothing to say to refute it. Had he not seen it with his own eyes enhanced by the power of his inherited talent?  
  
"I got ten of them, ten!" Naruto continued boasting as he got ever closer to Sasuke, "and I'm still standing. Not such a useless idiot now, am I?"  
  
When Sasuke did not reply, Naruto felt his grin slip a little. Why was the stoic boy even more stoic than ever? The dark haired genius had to have seen how well he had fared against those impossible seeming odds, and he must be impressed with the jutsu he had used to achieve that victory. Why couldn't he at least smirk at him or something, just give him a reaction to show that he acknowledged his accomplishments?  
  
Not that he cared, but still, it irked him that Sasuke had no reaction whatsoever.  
  
"Naruto," he heard a small voice behind the yet unresponsive Sasuke, "what did you do? What was that?"  
  
Belatedly, Naruto realized that Sakura stood there with Sasuke, her green eyes uncertain in her thoughtful face, regarding him with confusion and a bit of disbelief. How the hell had he not seen that the love of his life was standing not three feet away from him, getting closer with every step he took? Why was it that the only thing his eyes had seen was Sasuke, his dark hair blowing in the heated, fiery air as he exploded into the clearing, only to stand there immobile, staring at him all the while?  
  
"You saw, didn't you, Sakura?" Naruto smiled at Sakura through gritted teeth, his facial muscles ticking from the sheer force of it. If Sasuke was going to ignore him, well, he was going to do the same damn thing. The theory was eye for an eye, or something, so it was only fair that he pretended that Sasuke wasn't even there.  
  
"I saw.." Sakura paused, unsure about how to say what was on her mind. Naruto stopped walking towards her and Sasuke then, pausing at a spot directly in front of Sasuke, close enough so that if the blond reached out, he could touch the unspeaking boy before him.  
  
"You saw me. Lots of me. Cool, huh?" Naruto continued with his huge smile, his eyes crinkling from the width that the grin had reached. If he couldn't impress his damned, too-good-for-him rival, then he could at least impress the girl of his dreams.  
  
"I did. They weren't just replications, were they?"  
  
"Right! That was Shadow Replication! Bet you didn't know I could do that!"  
  
Sakura shook her head, her eyes never leaving Naruto's painfully grinning face and she reached out to grab Sasuke's shirt for comfort. This wasn't Naruto, it couldn't be, right? Naruto was supposed to be the worst at everything, barely succeeding where she had excelled. Even during training when he had worked himself to the bone, he had not learned new jutsus like Sasuke or her. He had only been taught the basics of chakra control, something everyone had already learned by heart and he had not even mastered that completely.  
  
That was Naruto that she knew, the failure, the loud mouthed idiot, the one who would always try the hardest but never succeed in anything. This Naruto, the one who had mastered and used Shadow Replication, a jutsu that she knew to be forbidden due to its excessive difficulty and high occurrence of death during learning, she just could not know.  
  
This could not be Naruto.  
  
--  
  
The clean-up after the sudden attack went quickly, the grisly task of gathering bodies and the wounded carried out efficiently in solemn quietude. Not much was said as survivors trickled into the main camp, some of them looking worse than the dead, their faces drawn and mouths silent. The battle had only lasted a little more than an hour, but the casualties were grave, the fifth line having lost more than a third of its numbers. The fact that every enemy agent had been eliminated before they had a chance to break through to Konoha, served only as a minor consolation.  
  
Kakashi rubbed his headband covering his left eye idly, watching the grim scene before him. He was used to this kind of thing, seeing dead bodies of his comrades laid out in bloody repose, but such was war. They had won this day, but the cost was always too high, the price of victory always paid by lives. Yet, beside the grief, was a sense of relief. None of his battalion had shown up in the corpses, which raised his hopes that all of them had survived.  
  
How had this happened? How was it that a group so large had infiltrated so far into their defenses without being detected only to launch an attack at the fifth line? It puzzled him to no end that this undetectable group of more than four hundred ninjas had not bypassed the fifth line to go straight into Konoha. There must have been a purpose to attacking the fifth line. The infiltration had been too successful, too well thought out for it to have been anything other than planned out.  
  
Had they also planned on losing? If so, then why? What the hell was going on anyway?  
  
As he stood in the midst of medical care and body gathering, he saw faces he recognized straggle in from the edges of the tree line. He smiled when Gai, his eyes overflowing with happy tears, bear hugged Lee as he came into the camp limping with Neji by his side. He pretended not to notice how Kurenai's face had nearly broken when TenTen and Shikamaru brought an unconscious Hinata, but laughed at her scathing reprimand to Chouji who had dared to come back dragging Kiba and his dog by the scruffs of their necks. His face mask was the only thing preventing others from seeing his smile when Shino, the boy with even less expression than the rock carvings of the Hokages, cringed ever so slightly from Ino's lamenting account of how she had nearly lost her beautiful hair to all the fire.  
  
However, the ones that he considered as his, the boisterous blond, the stoic genius and the politely cheerful girl, they would not show up, even after the moon rose and the clean up finished.  
  
--  
  
The tiny crescent moon hung in the sky, illuminating very little to the three weary people occupying a small space between two large oaks. The bluish tint of the light gave all of them a harsh look, highlighting the cheekbones to create deep shadows that hollowed out their cheeks. They had no fire to ward off the chilling light, nor did they have food to stave off the hunger nipping their stomachs. What they did have was a tension so thick that it was suffocating them.  
  
They had not chosen to get lost during battle, but inevitably, that was what had happened. Sasuke could not believe that during his speedy dash in search for enemies, he had not taken into account what direction he had run. In fact, with all the adrenaline of battle flushed out of system, he could not clearly recall what he had done to win against the enemies who had come before him. All he could remember with any accuracy was the burning in his lungs, the tunnel vision of his Sharingan, and the feeling that Naruto had evoked.  
  
A small tilt of his dark head brought Naruto into his line of vision. The blond was busy staring up at the sky, his back comfortably against the oak and his feet stretched out before him. He looked as if he was just star gazing, but the glaze of his eyes seemed a million miles away, seeing something that Sasuke could not see.  
  
Sakura shifted next to him, her body brushing slightly against his as she fell into sleep. She could no longer take the tension, the stress from this harrowing day. Everything had happened so fast, yet so slowly, making her head hurt. If sleep was her only avenue of escape, she would take it, if only to wake up in the morning with a better mind set to confront everything she had seen.  
  
When Sakura's breath evened out completely, Sasuke carefully stood, making sure not to wake her. She needed rest, probably more than either he or Naruto, because she was not in the same physical shape as they. It must have been hard on her, running for her life and not knowing if she would ever find safety.  
  
Naruto heard soft footsteps approaching him, but he did not turn his head. Instead, he lowered his head from contemplation of the stars to stare at his hands fidgeting on his lap. He had waited all day for Sasuke to say something to him, but he had gotten nothing. Even Sakura had stopped talking to him after he had told her the jutsu that he had used, the three of them trying to find their way back to camp in utter silence. Now, it seemed that Sasuke was headed his way, perhaps to say something, perhaps to walk right past him to something else.  
  
"Are you injured?" Sasuke asked softly as he crouched next to Naruto, his eyes searching the blond's face and body for visible wounds. Though Naruto had splatters of blood on his clothes and skin, he could not make out any cuts or scrapes. "Did you get hurt?"  
  
Shrugging his shoulders, Naruto snorted and let out a soft chuckle. "What do you care? And why do you want to know now?" Not that he was bitter, god forbid. "Shouldn't you have asked way before?"  
  
Frowning at the antagonistic tone, Sasuke edged a little closer to peer into his surly rival's face. He noted that besides the permanent uniform scars of three lines running parallel down each cheek, the blond idiot looked remarkably unscathed for being in a battle against ten ninjas of high caliber. Sure, Naruto was good, he acknowledged in the silence of his mind, but damn it, he wasn't that good. He had suffered many injuries fighting the Sound, from the stab wounds on his arm to the bone deep bruising from well placed hits. If he had sustained injuries, so should Naruto have, regardless of what jutsu he had used.  
  
"Just answer the damned question." Sasuke pushed the urge to shake the idiot by his rock hard head and tried to reason with him. "You won't be any good if you hide that you're hurt."  
  
So that's what it was. What the hell had he expected, a measure of concern? The damned genius boy had not even given his Shadow Replication technique a cursory notice and he had wanted to hear.. what, worry? From this block of ice that masqueraded as human?  
  
"I'm fine," Naruto bit out as he turned his resentful eyes towards his uncaring rival. "And thanks for caring, asshole."  
  
Sasuke met Naruto's eyes without flinching, his lips pursed in thought. He had known Naruto was fine, but then again, even if the idiot was bleeding out from a sucking chest wound, he had a feeling that his loud mouthed rival would say exactly the same thing.  
  
"Some of this blood has to be yours."  
  
"Yeah, it is." Naruto narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. It was rather disconcerting, the way Sasuke would not look away, the way he kept on looking into his eyes like he could see something beyond the baby blues. "I heal real fast. Always have."  
  
When Sasuke only grunted and continued to stare, Naruto barely suppressed the growl rising in his throat. What, didn't the damned genius boy believe him or something? What was wrong with healing fast, anyway? It was pretty damned useful for a soldier to have healing abilities that allowed minor cuts close almost instantaneously and the major hurts wash away in only minutes. Sasuke could not fault him for that natural ability, could he?  
  
"That is.." Sasuke paused, not knowing how to say what was on his mind. He was glad that Naruto was a fast healer, but he would never say that to his blond roommate out loud. There just was no way for him to say anything to Naruto to express how relieved he was that the blond was really fine and not just saying so to look tough. He could not say any of those things, how could he when he could barely believe it himself that he felt in such a way?  
  
"Look, before you get into a snit, Kakashi said it's my own unique ability, okay? So just lay off, will ya?"  
  
Tearing his eyes away from Sasuke's intense black eyes, Naruto leaned back fully into the tree and crossed his arms in what he knew looked like a defensive gesture. But he could not help it, not when Sasuke had stared at him so steadily with that unreadable look in his eyes. He did not turn his head when he heard Sasuke get up and walk away, back to his place beside Sakura. So what if he preferred to be next to the pretty girl? If he could, he would have taken that spot next to his pink haired crush.  
  
"I do, you know," Sasuke said softly and unexpectedly as he sat down next to Sakura's sleeping form.  
  
"You do what?" Naruto asked wearily, shifting his body to find a comfortable position to keep watch. They still had no idea what kind of enemies was lurking in the darkness, just waiting for them to drop their guard.  
  
"Care."  
  
In surprise, Naruto turned his head sharply to where Sasuke was sitting, trying to see if the genius ninja was making fun of him once more. But all he could see was the shadows that blocked out the pale face of his rival, hiding from him every delicate feature.  
  
--  
  
The nine members of Battalion 121 crouched around the fire pit, occasionally eyeing the rest of the people occupying the camp with them. What they were discussing was a bit daring, more than a little dangerous and definitely against orders. Still, they would talk about this and come to a decision together.  
  
"Kurenai would skin us if she heard us, and she's the nicest one."  
  
Shooting Chouji a glare that could have shattered rocks, Ino tried once more to advance her case. "So what if they told us we couldn't go look for them? We have to, we're a team, aren't we?"  
  
They had been talking about this ever since Kakashi and Asuma had told them that under no circumstances could they leave the camp grounds in search of the missing three of 121. Reasons ranged from the surrounding area still being too unstable for a bunch of inexperienced soldiers to go ranging to they had all sustained injuries that prevented full range of motion. All of it was valid, of course, but what did she care? Her best friend, the one girl who understood her and made her try her best, she was out there somewhere, lost, possibly hurt. What did Ino care that her commanding officers told them to stay put? There were some things in this world more important than following orders.  
  
She was not the only one who wanted to go find them either. She could tell that Hinata, though she said nothing, also wanted to search for the lost three. The shy girl would never voice her opinion out loud, but the way she sat there, her fingers twiddling nervously and worriedly, told Ino's sixth sense that she wanted to go find them.  
  
"It just isn't possible, we don't even know where they are." Shikamaru adjusted his torn uniform shirt with restless fingers as he looked around. Fire-lit faces of his comrades stared back at him, some with reproach, some with agreement. "If we went out without knowing anything, we'd just make things worse."  
  
"So," Ino gave Shikamaru a look so serious that it took him aback, "if we can find a way to track them, it'd be okay to go find them?"  
  
"Damn it, woman, that's not what I'm saying at all." Why was it that women were so damned stubborn about certain things? "You're so troublesome. I don't even know why we're talking about this."  
  
Before Ino could launch across the fire and break Shikamaru's nose, Neji reached out and restrained the blond. They were supposed to have a discreet discussion, not get into a fight that could attract the attention of the entire camp.  
  
"Look, Ino," Neji reasoned calmly, "I know where you're coming from. Believe me. But some things just cannot be done. We have to wait and see if fate was kind enough to have let them live."  
  
"Oh, screw you and fate," Ino hissed, stomping away from the fire and her fellow soldiers, knowing that she had lost this battle. All she could do was pray that the three of them, most especially Sakura, would make it back.  
  
--  
  
Light sifted through the canopy of trees, creating small prisms of rainbows out of the morning due still fresh on the grass. Three people trudged through this beautiful sight wearily, walking in single file with their eyes scanning the area surrounding them. They had started their trek long before sunrise, Sakura being the only one who had managed to sleep for a couple of hours, trying to trace their way back to the camp that had to be in these dense woods somewhere.  
  
Sakura walked staring at Sasuke's back, keeping pace with the taller boy's precise footsteps. Something was still amiss in the air, and it wasn't just the tension left over from the previous day. Something new had occurred while she slept oblivious, something odd and serious enough that Sasuke and Naruto refused to even look at each other.  
  
"Sasuke," she started, unable to stand the quiet anymore, "are your eyes better?"  
  
When he did not answer right away, she sighed, wondering if it was prudent for her to question him any further. However, he surprised her by turning his head towards her, showing her his handsome profile highlighted by the sun.  
  
"My eyes were never bad."  
  
As if that explained anything. She suppressed an irritated huff, knowing that he did not mean to be so cryptic, and waited him to continue. She did not notice that Naruto had walked up closer to her, his ears perked.  
  
"The red eyes were the Sharingan. It's an ability only the Uchiha clan members have."  
  
Sasuke continued walking as he spoke, still looking askance at Sakura. He was sure that Naruto was listening in on this conversation, how could he not with his curiosity and proximity, and he meant to let the blond know as much as ease the disquiet from Sakura's mind.  
  
"It allows me to see all different types of jutsu, and if so required, for me to copy them, elaborate and manipulate them. I thought I didn't have it, because it usually manifests at a younger age than mine, but as it turns out, I do."  
  
Sakura nodded, absorbing the information so freely given. She had never heard Sasuke say so many words at once, unless he was giving Naruto a scathing put-down. More than that, he was talking about himself, something of a rarity from the intensely private boy.  
  
She smiled genuinely, her mind more at peace now that she knew nothing was wrong with Sasuke. If anything, he was even more impressive than before.  
  
Noticing Sakura's relief and the lessening of the worried tension in the air, Sasuke turned his head back to face the front, but not before he caught a look at Naruto's eyes widening at his news. Well, the damned idiot had surprised him the day before by pulling out a mass of emotions from the depth of his being, so it was only fair that he surprised the living crap out of the blond by letting him know of his newly found talent. Besides, with his blond head filled with the information about the Sharingan, he might forget that some things were said during the solitude of the night that Sasuke had not meant to voice out loud or otherwise.  
  
With some time, maybe he could forget it as well.  
  
--  
  
TBC  
  
-- 


	5. Fear and Loathing

Once again, the reviews were quite wonderful. Except for one, which I have yet to figure out if it is a flame or a request due to grammar inadequacies and spelling errors...  
  
Warnings: This is yaoi. It will eventually be Sasuke and Naruto, sitting in a tree, doing god knows what. Not this chapter, but it's pretty clear that I'm working for that SasuNaru pairing. OOC occurrences as well.  
  
--  
  
Fear and Loathing  
  
Four days and still, there was no sign of Sasuke, Sakura or Naruto. For four days since the battle had ended, the members of 121 waited with hearts in their mouths for the three lost ninjas to come into the clearing where their camp was, but there was nothing. Kakashi had even gone out into the forest surrounding camp in order to search for them on the third day, but nothing had been found. It was almost as if they had vanished into the air, like they had been spirited away during battle.  
  
Tension ran high, the soldiers of the 121 snapping at each other without meaning to. All felt the stress from not knowing where the three were, whether they had lived or not, whether they had been kidnapped into the embrace of the enemy or anything else that might have happened. Yet, despite the worry and the need all of them felt to various degrees to find them, there was a war to be fought and duties to carry out.  
  
That was why at the end of the fourth day of waiting for their return, all the battalions stationed at the fifth line, point two-seven had to move out to a new camp site in order to strengthen defenses and plan a counterattack. They could not stand around for the three of them to return indefinitely, and as much as it pained the four commanding officers and the remaining nine soldiers of the 121, they broke camp to move out to a new location in order to assess total damages and formulate future plans.  
  
--  
  
"Hey, Sasuke," Naruto whined, trudging behind the ever silent Uchiha heir, "how the hell did you get lost so badly?"  
  
If Sasuke had not been thinking the same thing, he would have given Naruto a very nasty piece of his mind. Truthfully, after the second day of wandering around the woods looking for signs of their camp or any tracks that could have led there, the dark haired boy had been at a loss to explain why they were so damned lost. Surely, even if they had been lost in the beginning, it should not have taken him so long to find their way back. They had been trained in tracking, tracing their paths using stars and nature, therefore it was absolutely inconceivable that they would be lost still, on their fourth day of meandering.  
  
"Why don't you stop the damned whining and use your animal instincts to find our way back?" Sasuke stomped along ahead, not even deigning to turn his head to address his blond rival. It could not be entirely his fault that they were in this situation, wasn't the damned loud mouth also a trained ninja? "So far, all you've done is to eat most of our scrounged up food and driving me insane."  
  
Naruto glared at Sasuke's back, clenching his fists at his side. Ever since that first night when the enigmatic dark haired boy had said he cared, the mood between them had been strained at best. The only times they communicated was to insult each other, to blame each other for some transgression or another. Yet, unlike in the past when the insults had been just a way to express their rivalry, it seemed that these sets of scathing remarks served another purpose. Just what that was, Naruto did not want to know, instinctively shrinking back from the answer that lurked just beneath the surface.  
  
An uneasy silence fell on the three as Naruto refused to rise to the bait and retort at Sasuke using various words that mothers told their children not to use. The only sounds heard were crunching of leaves under their feet and the ghostly wind blowing through the branches. Sakura felt her shoulders sag as she walked watching Sasuke's graceful back. It seemed like all she did was watch Sasuke or listen to him and Naruto argue. Sasuke paid her no mind except to occasionally make sure that she was still there and even Naruto who had been slavish in his attention on her seemed to forget that she was with them. What the hell was wrong with those two? When had their relationship changed to the point where they saw nothing but each other, even if it was in rivalry and loathing?  
  
As she continued her silent watch and contemplation of her crush and her annoying stalker's relationship, she blocked out the flow of the argument that inevitably started up once again between the two boys. It was just easier to ignore them as they hurled insults and names at each other than to stand between them as a moderator. Although she had never meant to be in the middle of the arguments, invariably, there she was, trying to cut through the vicious name calling and blaming, to no avail. She had given up soothing their flaring tempers and unease some time ago, opting to get lost in her own head with her private thoughts. She almost preferred the disquieting silence of their first day as lost lambs instead of this constant bickering that played her frayed nerves closer to the edge with each syllable.  
  
"Are we really lost?" Sakura heard Naruto accuse, "because it sure seems to me like we're just fucking circling the same spot." The blond tucked his hands behind his head and carelessly let the words stream out. "Come on, genius boy, are you doing this on purpose just to piss me off or what?"  
  
The pink haired girl let out a sigh as Sasuke tensed his shoulders and stopped walking. She knew that the boiling point had been reached, that the four days of stress, uncertainty and whatever the hell that had sprung up between the two boys were coming to a head. She wondered whether or not to interfere, if letting them have it out would relieve all the tension or it would just end up with her digging graves for the two of them.  
  
"Why the hell would I want to be lost with you? Do I look insane to you?"  
  
"Oh shit, you don't want me to answer that, do you?" Naruto grinned viciously at Sasuke's twitching face. "I don't see how I can answer that one-"  
  
The blond never got to finish his appropriately insulting reply since Sasuke chose to dive at him and knock him onto the ground. Naruto barely blocked a fist coming at his face and rolled free just in time to see his dark haired rival forming a jutsu with his hands.  
  
"Shit, Sasuke," Naruto scrabbled backwards on his hands and feet as he tried to figure out what jutsu he was about to face, "don't get so fucking serious! What the hell is the matter with you?"  
  
"What's the matter with me?" Sasuke halted forming the jutsu and stared incredulously at the stunned blonde. "Matter with me? What about you? Why the hell can't you just leave me alone? Why are you always pissing me off?"  
  
"That's what I do! Fuck, Sasuke, we're always fighting! What's so different now that you have to throw a ninjutsu at me?"  
  
Sasuke breathed hard as he glared at his rival, knowing that Naruto was right. They always fought, it had been like that since the day they had been assigned to the 121. And until now, he had never been so close to losing his control, enough of it so that he had seriously tried to injure the idiot blond with a jutsu that he had not even thought to use during the battle. Why was it that Naruto got so easily under his skin now? Why the hell couldn't they go back to being rivals as they had been, instead of this new, amorphous thing they were now?  
  
All this only because he had said something he should not have in the night. All this tension, lack of control, this confusion had happened just because something in his heart and soul decided to go insanely stupid when it came to Naruto.  
  
"Will you two just stop this nonsense? We have better things to worry about!"  
  
Sasuke and Naruto jerked their eyes to Sakura who had yelled with uncharacteristic fire. She stood, her head bowed and covered by her length of pink hair that had turned ragged with the passage of rough lost days, her body shaking. She had had enough, damn it, of all the tension, the arguments, everything. They were lost in the woods, they had no idea how to get out of their predicament, and all the boys could do was snipe at each other. They should have better sense than this, they had been trained for it.  
  
"I'm sick and tired of listening to the two of you," she raged, "and I'm tired of being lost, I want to rest, I want to wash my hair. Stop this immediately!"  
  
Naruto swallowed thickly, unwilling to show that he was shocked by her intense reaction. He was used to this, Sakura yelling at him for some transgression or another, it had been that way since he had laid his eyes on her when he was so young. But for her to show her ire to Sasuke, the one she worshipped as he worshipped her, that was downright rare. They must have been really getting on her nerves to have pushed her to the point where she could show her displeasure at Sasuke.  
  
"I.. I apologize, Sakura, for my behavior." Sasuke looked as if he had bitten into something unpleasant, but he did not falter. "I know we should figure something out, and I know I should not let the idiot get to me." He ignored Naruto's splutter that he was certainly not the only idiot in this group. "You are the smartest one here, Sakura. Have you figured anything unusual about this?"  
  
Surprised at Sasuke's apology and his plea for help, Sakura lifted her head to stare at the handsome face. His lips twisted in a mockery of a smile as he shrugged his shoulders carelessly, causing Sakura to smirk at his out of the ordinary actions.  
  
"Well, I was thinking that we should not be this lost, no matter what the circumstance."  
  
Sasuke nodded, his eyes gliding past Sakura's thoughtful face to Naruto's irate one, only to receive a sour look from the blond. Well, it wasn't his fault that all it took was one sentence from him to bring Sakura back to normal.  
  
"Have you thought that maybe, we're not lost, but forced to be lost?"  
  
Now, that was something Sasuke had not quite considered. From the look on Naruto's face, it had not exactly crossed his mind either.  
  
"Who would do something like that though? I mean.. who could?"  
  
Sakura tilted her head and considered Naruto's question carefully. In four days, they had not been attacked, had not sensed any enemy chakra or presence. That meant, either her theory was way off the edge or someone more skilled than they could ever imagine was playing with them. Someone that even Sasuke's newly awakened Sharingan could not detect.  
  
"I think.." Sakura cleared her suddenly dry throat, "I think we're in a lot of trouble."  
  
--  
  
The night fell softly, deathly around the three lost ninjas, the black ink of it surrounding them with unease and danger. Ever since their conversation earlier that day, they had become unbearably tense and alert, every muscle and nerve ending twitching from anticipating the moves of this unseen foe. They did not know who it could be, how much power this person had at their disposal, and most importantly, they did not know why this was happening. Was it only they caught in this strange trap or had others of their battalion fallen into this situation as well? What in the name of nine hells was going on here?  
  
Among the three of them, they had limited number of weapons. Naruto had two kunai, but one had either cut too closely to a bone or something equally as hard, because its edges were ragged and blunt. He had only three shuriken left, barely enough to take down one bumbling ninja, let alone someone skilled enough to have done.. whatever this was to them. Sasuke had even less weapons on him, having used his shuriken and kunai freely in his pursuit of the enemy, but Sakura had kindly relegated some of her weapons to him seeing as how she had not actually fought during the battle. Still, their weapons stash was small and they were only beginners when it came to battle, no matter how many jutsus they knew, no matter that they had survived the first encounter with the enemy.  
  
The moon, a barely shining crescent in the sky, illuminated only enough for them to see shadows that seem to move every time they turned their heads. Even with his Sharingan, Sasuke could barely make anything out.  
  
"I hope you're wrong, Sakura," Sasuke whispered, "because if you're right, and there is something out there, we will not make it out alive."  
  
"Don't be such a dope!" Naruto turned to glare through the darkness at Sasuke, "we're gonna be okay. Sheesh, how can you give up before it starts?"  
  
"Do you even live in reality, idiot?" Sasuke carefully calmed his madly twitching eyebrow, telling himself that he could not let Naruto make him angry. "If we are really in some elaborate trap, it means genjutsu. Illusion! An illusion that my Sharingan can't see. Does that mean anything to you?"  
  
Naruto stiffened his spine and walked up to Sasuke in even measured steps. "So what if your fancy eyes can't see?" He raised his hand to shove Sasuke lightly on his shoulder, forcing the dark haired boy to step back to keep his balance. "So what if we're up against something so damned amazing that it's making you say stupid shit?" Naruto shoved his face very near Sasuke's seething one, his voice a study of fire and disappointment. "You're my rival, ain't you? You're the guy who's always supposed to be better than me? So why the fuck are you so scared? Why're ya making me yell at you, huh?"  
  
To Naruto's absolute amazement, Sasuke began chuckling that blew itself into a full out laugh. The shorter blond backed off a bit, regarding the rare sight of Sasuke's laughing face in the wan light of the bleached out moon, not quite understanding what had happened.  
  
"You.." Sasuke gasped, trying to catch his breath as his laughter faded, "you are downright impossible, you know that?" His dark eyes shone like onyx as he stared hard at Naruto's surprised face so shockingly near his still. "You don't get that you're supposed to be scared, do you? You don't understand that we're up against someone truly terrifying, do you?"  
  
"So what?" Naruto crossed his arms defiantly, refusing to back away from this strange Sasuke who was laughing at him with that glint in his dark eyes.  
  
"So.. so, I don't get you, idiot. I don't get why your stupid, brash attitude should make me feel better."  
  
More than the laughing, more than Sasuke's earlier fear, this shocked the hell out of Naruto. Had Sasuke just said something that could qualify as nice.. to him? Even if seventy percent of it was insulting?  
  
"Oh, how lovely," came a disembodied voice to shatter this little moment, "two friends who are so disgustingly sweet to watch."  
  
Instantly, all of Sasuke's laughter and Naruto's shock evaporated like water on a hot skillet, only leaving alert and ready ninjas in its wake. The red flare of the Sharingan came back to life in Sasuke's eyes, the dark dots surrounding his pupils circling madly in search for the body that went with the voice.  
  
Sakura found herself between Sasuke and Naruto the second the voice had rung out into the woods, her body protected by the two boys from either side. Her hands trembled lightly, but then again, why should not she be scared? Whoever was out there, he was much more powerful than all three of them.  
  
"Hey, Sasuke, you see anything?" Even though Naruto might have belittled the Sharingan before, he knew for a fact that the best chance they had lay in his rival's inherited eyes.  
  
"How sad." The creepy voice started again, coming from all directions. "The little blond ninja can't do anything without the eyes of the Uchiha. How incredibly sad."  
  
"Ignore it, Naruto," Sakura said gently, "you know better than letting that get to you."  
  
A slithering laughter echoed in the night, making Naruto tense more and Sasuke's search more frantic. Where was this guy?  
  
"How sweet, the encouragement from the pretty, useless girl. You three have been quite funny, but very sad. None of you can even see this jutsu, not even you, possessor of the Sharingan." Another round of icy chuckling followed, the sound made colder by the night and the shifting shadows. "I'm so very disappointed, my dear last of the Uchiha, my dear brother."  
  
Sasuke stopped breathing, his eyes stopped scanning as he finally recognized the intense, frightening voice in the wind. Brother.  
  
"Itachi.." The hated name escaped his numbed lips before he could think, earning him a sharp look from Naruto. He did not notice the look nor that he had dropped the kunai he had in his hand. The only thing he knew was that his brother was out there, taunting him, letting him know that even now, after he had grown and trained, he was no match for the brother he had so admired and then hated.  
  
--  
  
Something smelled terribly wrong, like rotten eggs buried deep beneath the earth. Not that it was an actual tangible smell, more of a feeling nagging at the back of his head, but nevertheless, something was definitely wrong. Kakashi narrowed his visible eye, his arms at his sides unconsciously reaching for shuriken in his pouch, as he tried to figure out just what was so damned wrong that his senses were going haywire.  
  
Maybe he was just out of sorts because of the missing members of the 121, but he doubted it. The feeling, this smell that seemed to ripple in his brain, screamed danger, the kind that dripped blood and caused nightmares. He had not felt something like this since he was a young man, just barely trained in the arts of the ninja, facing a foe that had nearly killed him. That had been what, eight years ago? He was one of the best Konoha, if not the world, had to offer now, and yet, that terrifying feeling from eight years ago was tickling at the edges of his consciousness.  
  
"Damn it, get yourself together, Kakashi," he muttered, admonishing his foolishly distracted self from dwelling on the fear grabbing hold of him. If something was so damned wrong, then he would go check it out, not sit here and contemplate it to death. However, he would not go alone, he was not an idiot after all.  
  
He hoped Kurenai or Asuma would be up for some scouting based solely upon his gut feeling, because however antsy he was to check out this thing nagging him, there was no way in hell he'd ask Gai. He'd rather burn his precious book first.  
  
--  
  
Naruto spat blood pooling in his mouth out onto the ground, coughing to return some oxygen into his lungs. Everything hurt so badly, from his head kicked so swiftly and violently to his left ankle that he knew was broken. Barely supporting his pain wracked body with his arms, he tried to stand, but his amazing healing abilities had not yet caught up to the damage dealt to him by the one Sasuke had called Itachi.  
  
His blue eyes swiveled to the prone and unmoving form of Sakura who laid only a couple of feet away from him. If it were not for her chest moving shallowly, he would have thought her dead. When the attack had come at them so suddenly and from a direction he still could not discern, Sakura had been the first to go, one hit to her face enough to knock her out completely. Not that he had fared any better, for in the next second, he had been on the ground, tasting copper and feeling pain like he'd never experienced.  
  
Slight shift of his eyes brought Sasuke into his line of vision, and what he saw dropped his already drumming heart into his feet. In the low light of the moon, he saw Sasuke held against a tree by his throat, his feet dangling off the ground by a good foot. The dark haired boy was clawing at the hand holding him, his face twisted into an expression so hateful and fierce that Naruto thought that maybe he was looking at someone else.  
  
"Hold on a sec," Naruto gasped as he forced his body to move, "I'll be right there, so don't you give up, you asshole."  
  
Sasuke did not hear Naruto's encouragement, did not even notice that the injured blonde was basically crawling towards him and his brother. All his eyes could see was the face that had plagued his nightmares and revenge fantasies for eight years, smiling grotesquely at him. His brother had changed, he noted absently; he had grown taller, broader, and startlingly, more like their father.  
  
"Dear, dear brother," Itachi murmured, "is this all you have to offer?"  
  
Gods, if only he could breathe. If only his limbs would obey him, then Itachi would be nothing more than a bad memory. But he could not move more than his hands tearing at the strong grip at his throat, could not voice the rage that gurgled in his head. Damn him, Sasuke could only seethe, damn him to the nine hells that spawned him.  
  
"Your Sharingan is incomplete, my younger brother," his brother taunted, "only three dots total. Not nearly enough to touch me, let alone kill me."  
  
Suddenly, Sasuke felt air invade his lungs as Itachi threw him, almost too casually, into Naruto who had almost made it to them. He felt his body crash into the blonde's and they skidded in a tangle of limbs and new pain on the ground.  
  
"All this effort just to see if you were fit, and you only disappoint." Itachi drawled, walking towards the fallen pair on silent feet. "I sacrificed most of my reserve forces just for you, brother dear, and you are not nearly ready. Are you truly the avenger you claim to be? How long must I wait for you, little brother?"  
  
Sasuke raised his head to watch Itachi approach. He could see the Sharingan in his brother's eyes, so much like his yet so different, glowing like heated steel in the dark. They were so much more frightening than the ones he saw in his dreams, held more power than he had thought possible. What could he do, as he was, against his brother who had always been so much better at everything than he? What could he do against this one man who had had the power to slaughter every member of the Uchiha clan eight years ago, save him?  
  
His hands fisted in the earth, railing at him for his inability to do anything. He had sworn vengeance against Itachi all those years ago, but now that he was faced with his brother, all he could do was lay on the ground, looking up at the face so eerily like his, unable to get up.  
  
'So this is it,' Sasuke gritted his teeth, 'this is the end, how I will die.'  
  
He turned his head in shame, unable to face his brother walking towards him, unable to swallow the thick taste of humiliation, and his eyes fell on Naruto groaning back to life next to him.  
  
"Idiot," Sasuke smiled sadly, "stay down. It'll be easier."  
  
But as always, Naruto would not listen. Sneering around the blood staining his mouth, he wobbled to his feet, wincing when his broken ankle caught awkwardly on the stony ground, but he stood. Then he held out his hand for Sasuke who only stared up at him in disbelief.  
  
"Sasuke, you bastard," the blonde grated, "get the fuck up. We ain't dead yet."  
  
Itachi stopped in his advance to consider the stubborn ninja with blazing blue eyes and the wild golden hair. If anything, the boy had guts, but still, that would not be enough to defeat him.  
  
"Amusing.. very amusing to see that you can't admit defeat."  
  
"Shut up, bastard!" Naruto turned his eyes away from Itachi's sardonic smirk and his coldly gleaming eyes to look down on Sasuke. How many times had he dreamed that he would be the one standing over Sasuke, that he would be the one to save his rival from certain doom like heroes were supposed to do? He had dreamed it so often that he lost count, but damn it, it was not supposed to be this way. In reality, the Sasuke he knew would never ask for help, need help, from someone like him. In reality, the Sasuke he knew would be on his feet, ready to face whatever enemy that came at him.  
  
He just had to make sure Sasuke went back to what he was supposed to be.  
  
"Hey, Sasuke, get up. Let's fuck this guy up, yeah?"  
  
"Naruto, you idiot," Sasuke half laughed, "do you even know who we're up against?" A hysterical edge cut into his soft voice like glass shards in flesh. "Of course not. Why would you? You're just an idiot who can't understand anything."  
  
"Yeah, you're right. I am an idiot and I don't understand anything."  
  
Sasuke watched in unabashed awe as a smile dawned on Naruto's face, his eyes shining bluer than the summer sky and somehow brightening the suffocating night around them. It was a smile filled with faith and belief, a smile that warmed him throughout his body, chasing away the crippling fear and shame that had filled every nook and cranny of his system.  
  
"I may be an idiot," Naruto continued through that blinding smile, "but you ain't. You're the best at everything, right? You always succeed, right? Why should it be any different now?"  
  
'How do you do that,' Sasuke wondered as he reached out his hand towards the one Naruto had extended earlier, 'how the hell can you change me like this with just a smile and words?'  
  
When Sasuke stood by his side, Naruto turned his head to the enemy ahead of them, standing with that damnable smirk still present on his face. He felt Sasuke do the same, concentrating on Itachi, but as much as he was lost in assessing the enemy, he did not fail to notice that Sasuke had yet to let go of his hand.  
  
"So, we're going to take him down."  
  
"Damn straight," Naruto grinned savagely and tightened the grip on Sasuke's hand in his. They were in this together, as it should be.  
  
--  
  
TBC  
  
-- 


	6. A Demon's Face

The reviews have been wonderful, especially the comprehensive ones. They help me out greatly. Therefore, with all your encouraging words, I have pounded out yet another chapter. I hope you enjoy.  
  
Warning: Blood, Violence, Bad Bad Words, MORE Violence  
  
Disclaimer: Not own Naruto. That's right, I said it.  
  
A Demon's Face  
  
"Kakashi, you should have gotten us earlier!"  
  
The silver haired man ignored Kurenai's slightly trembling statement as he made a lengthy jump from the tree branch. When he had found Kurenai and Asuma earlier drinking tea and settling in for the night shift, they had shrugged nonchalantly at his concerns and had only come after deciding that it would do some good to get exercise. Then as they jumped branch to branch towards the direction Kakashi felt the most wrongness, they had felt it as well, and now, mere half an hour after this pursuit began, all three were uneasy and nervous.  
  
The smell, as Kakashi had termed it, grew in strength the more they moved westward towards the site of their old camp grounds, the scent of danger intensifying with every step. Asuma bit down on his unlit cigarette hard, nearly severing the butt in half, as he pondered the situation at hand. This ugly feeling had not existed during the battle four days ago, he would have noticed it then with his heightened battle senses, but it was related, he knew it. Something in his gut told him that the real reason for the attack lay behind this dangerous crackling in the air and that it certainly related back to the missing ninjas of the battalion.  
  
Only if he knew how it all connected, then he would not be feeling like he was walking blind into a cave full of traps.  
  
"We're getting closer," Kakashi announced, breaking Asuma's revelry, "let's step it a bit, shall we?"  
  
The three commanders of the 121 became faster than the wind, their forms blurring into the woods and the night enveloping them. Something was happening, and they would be damned if they missed it.  
  
--  
  
Sakura opened her eyes despite all her neurons telling her that it was not a good idea. She agreed when pain violently wracked her head as soon as the weak moonlight hit her pupils. Groaning softly, Sakura squinted to focus her eyes, but the world was a blur of dark colors.  
  
"Sasuke?"  
  
Good gracious, was that her voice that sounded like sandpaper over a chalkboard? What had happened? Slowly, her memories presented her with visual images and aural sensations, all of it culminating in a vicious hit that made her see stars, then nothing at all.  
  
'Oh, yeah,' her sluggish thoughts said, 'I was knocked out.'  
  
Her eyes had yet to focus on anything, but her ears made out distinct sounds ahead of her. She heard clink of metal bouncing off each other, the sickening soft thuds of landed hits on soft spots of a body, and the occasional suppressed gurgle of pain. Overlaying all these sounds of a furious fight was a constant mocking laughter, the one that had sent shivers down her spine before the world went blankly dark.  
  
Ah, yes, how could she forget, even in her state of confused semi- consciousness, that a man named Itachi had been hunting them?  
  
'Oh gods,' came the unbidden thought, 'is that..'  
  
Ignoring the pain, Sakura opened her eyes and forced them to adjust to the night and the light. Eventually, she saw shapes form into bodies and shadows transmute into faces.  
  
Sasuke and Naruto were fighting against one man. And they were losing badly.  
  
Naruto had long ago abandoned everything Kakashi had taught him about taijutsu, his limbs having numbed from the pain. It was all he could do to dodge the mockingly nonchalant hits dealt out by Itachi, let alone launch an effective counterstrike. He moved only on instinct, letting his body react before his mind could process the results, swaying like a windblown willow, keeping his balance only by sheer power of his will. Out of the corner of his swollen right eye, he could see Sasuke fighting just as hard as he, and just as desperate. The dark haired genius' eyes flickered from dark to red, the chakra required to maintain the Sharingan having depleted some time ago. Still, determination etched every weary and achy line of his face.  
  
Sakura lied still on the ground, watching Sasuke and Naruto as they fought Itachi who did not even have to move in order to avoid their attacks and jutsus. She saw that with every move Naruto made, a fresh stream of blood from some wound would snake out into the air, dully reflecting the cold moonlight before it splattered onto the already soaking ground. She winced when Sasuke kicked and was brutally blocked, hearing that awful crunch that signified a major bone break.  
  
'I have to help. I have to help.' The mantra ran in her head over and over, but she could not force her body to move in order to carry out that mission. Her arms shook every time she even thought about moving them, her legs gave out before she could put weight on them. It was as if her body was telling her to stay down, stay out and pretend just to be dead.  
  
Sound of branches snapping made her turn her head, her eyes taking in the sight of Sasuke as he sailed through the air along with the tree parts that got taken out by his body. Her green eyes widened and filled with tears and panic when Sasuke landed on his back, air forced out of his lungs along with a smattering of blood. Slowly, painfully, on shaking hands and knees that threatened to crumble, she crawled towards his prone form, trying hard not to draw any attention to herself. If Sasuke had been dispatched so easily, she stood no chance and it would do no one any good if she got killed by being careless.  
  
The nearer she got to his body, the clearer she could make out the numerous injuries that he had sustained. He still coughed blood, every choking wheeze bringing a fresh supply of the life liquid pouring out of his mouth, and the way he breathed, that wet, gurgling sound, told her that he had a punctured lung. He was covered in blood, she had no idea a human being could lose so much of it and still live, but thank the gods, he was alive. Labored breathing, the twitching fingers in the earth, they all told her that even if he was so wounded that his eyes glazed over in incomprehension, he was still alive.  
  
Carefully, mindful of the injuries, Sakura cleared the dark hair away from his handsome face and cradled his head into her lap. She could not be sure if Itachi could see her trying to help Sasuke, but since she had not been attacked, she assumed safety. What was that Kakashi had taught her about medical treatment? She recalled his lectures, the techniques that he had shown her, how he had explained the use of chakra in order to heal. She had never done it before, but she knew the theories by heart. If she wanted to help Sasuke, she would have to do this. So far, all she had done was watch him as he fought in her stead, protected her from every threat. In the least, she could heal some of his injuries and bring him some comfort.  
  
Closing her eyes, Sakura centered herself and formed her chakra, her head a calm space of Kakashi's voice intoning everything she needed to do in order to heal someone. The sounds of the still on-going fight faded from her ears, the feel of death and blood receded and soon, only the feel of her chakra flowing out of her and into Sasuke remained. She no longer cared that her own face throbbed or that her head hurt, because in the center of her being was Sasuke, slowly regaining his consciousness as she poured herself into him.  
  
A muffled groan snapped her out of her revelries and reality crashed back into her harshly. The vague twinge she had distantly identified as a headache became a full grown monster of a migraine, pounding into her skull in cadence to the dancing spots of light in her eyes. The strength she had left had been spent in order to bring Sasuke back, and it was all she could do not to fall onto the boy face first.  
  
"Sasuke," she whispered, her heart hammering in her chest, "are you okay?"  
  
For a short moment, there was nothing but Sasuke climbing back into the conscious world, his breathing harsh but no longer watery. When his eyes opened, Sakura's breath left her in a swift exhale; his eyes, the color of the darkest night, looked up at her with a fierce conviction.  
  
"What.." Sasuke began, unsure of where he was, "what the hell happened? Is it over?"  
  
Before Sakura could answer, a short scream echoed in the air followed by a heavy sound of a body being driven into the earth. In unison, Sakura and Sasuke turned their heads to see Naruto, face down on the ground with Itachi's right foot grinding him ever deeper into the rocky soil. Naruto's fingers gripped the earth, the loose dirt sifting through the digits, as he tried to get up, only to be thwarted by the powerful man standing on him.  
  
"Are you recovered, brother dear?"  
  
Cursing silently, Sasuke shook off Sakura's restraining hands and rolled over onto his stomach, his eyes flickering back into the red of the Sharingan. He could feel his chakra draining as he did, having used too much in this impossible fight against Itachi, but he would not leave Naruto to fight alone. He had left him alone for too long already it seemed, picking up his slack while he had passed out.  
  
"Not quite a hundred percent, I see." Itachi threw his head back and let out an echoing laugh, his left hand idly flipping a kunai into the air. "Your friend here, I admire his fire. He's quite interesting."  
  
Growling, Sasuke gathered his legs, forcing strength he did not have into them. He had to stand, damn it. This fight was supposed to be his and his alone, the goal of his life, the reason that he joined the Special Academy, the wherefore of his training. Naruto should not even be there, moaning under the grinding heel of his murderous brother. If anything, that should be him.  
  
"Let go of him." Sasuke rose onto his knees, his eyes never leaving the form of his brother, and his hands began forming a jutsu. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint, only seeing Naruto struggling and Itachi laughing, as he formed the final seals and gathered his chakra. He would save Naruto, get them out of here away from his brother. As much as the idiot had boasted, there was no way to beat Itachi here and now, but if they could just get away.. if they could just survive.. then there would be another chance to face his brother.  
  
A burst of flames and smoke flew towards Itachi, illuminating the night with a ruddy color as it traveled faster than Sakura's eyes could track. The ground around Itachi exploded and blazed when the fire jutsu hit, throwing Sasuke and Sakura back with the force created from the explosion.  
  
Dust was still settling when Sasuke hastily raised his head to look for any signs of his brother. Smoke obscured his Sharingan vision, but he stared out into the smoking crater. He had to have some kind of damage to Itachi with that, it was the most powerful jutsu he knew. However, his hope was dashed rather quickly when a figure without a scratch on him stepped through the swirling mist of dirt and smoke to throw a limp body at him.  
  
"You almost toasted your friend, Sasuke." Itachi mused as Sasuke scrambled to Naruto's side. "You must hate me more than I thought if you would sacrifice your friend to hurt me."  
  
"I did not sacrifice him," Sasuke replied angrily. Even so, his hands skimmed over Naruto's unconscious and singed form to check for injuries he might have inflicted. When he concluded that all of Naruto's injuries were from Itachi and not from him, relief at not hurting his friend washed over him. Yet, close behind the relief was a roiling emotion he could not define, boiling hot and steady, ready to rip out of his pores. It reflected in his eyes that could no longer hold the Sharingan, turning the glossy black into a pair of lightless pits.  
  
"I do hate you." Sasuke picked up Naruto, his arms almost breaking at the added dead weight, and somehow stood. Without looking away from his grinning brother, Sasuke deposited Naruto on the ground as far away from Itachi he could get without losing sight of him. "I am an avenger. Hatred for you is what keeps me going. Killing you is my goal." His voice went dead, belying the raging fire that burned in his body. "You cannot be forgiven."  
  
Sasuke touched the blonde boy gently across his scarred cheek, his eyes lingering on the slack and bloody face for a second, before he limped towards Itachi. He could not win against him, oh he knew that quite well, especially alone. But Naruto should not have been involved in the first place; this fight was between them, the last two remainders of the Uchiha clan. He stopped only once on his approach towards Itachi, when a hand grasped him by his bad ankle, the grip so light and hesitant that it could have been the wind.  
  
"Sakura," Sasuke monotoned, "let go."  
  
"This is crazy, Sasuke," he heard her moan, her voice shaking and wet, "let's just get away from here."  
  
"I thought that we could. I thought that if we distracted him enough, we could run and fight another day." Sasuke shook off Sakura's hand and continued his short trek towards the figure waiting so patiently for him. "But he won't let me."  
  
Finally, he stood before his brother, his right arm out and his left arm held slightly above his waist, the stance for his most favored taijutsu. He had no chakra left, practically no strength left, and his mind blurred with exhaustion and pain. Still, he had to fight.  
  
"Take care of Naruto, Sakura."  
  
Burying the crushing jolt of pain that ran up his frame, Sasuke attacked.  
  
--  
  
The first thing Naruto saw when he opened his eyes was Sakura crouched on the ground next to him, her head buried in her hands. He heard the hiccoughing noise that emerged from her hidden face, and it took him a bit to figure out that she was crying.  
  
'What the hell?' That thought was quickly followed by a wellspring of panic. 'Sasuke!'  
  
He tried, he really did, to get up, to stand, to even fucking crawl, but nothing responded. His arms remained at his side, his legs refused his commands and even his head could not swivel. Of all times to be paralyzed..  
  
'Sakura. Sakura, please. Please look at me and tell me what the hell is going on.' The words swam in his head, but he could not voice them. And despite all his pleadings that echoed in the vault of his mind, Sakura continued to cry into her hands, and he could only gauge that the situation was truly bad if that was her reaction.  
  
'Sasuke can't be dead, because..' He paused in his ramblings, not quite knowing why he had such monumental faith in Sasuke and his abilities. Since when had he admired his rival so much that he could not even fathom the dark haired boy failing in anything, even believing that he could win this fight against Itachi?  
  
'Think later. Move now.'  
  
Sakura's sobbing grew distant from his mind as he concentrated on nudging his unresponsive limbs to action. When Sasuke had been knocked out, he had barely managed to keep Itachi busy enough so that he would not go after his rival. He had endured everything that came at him, thrown everything he had at the damned sinister ninja, but even so, it had not been enough. Now, he could hear Sasuke putting up a fight, most likely trying harder than he had since this seemed to be a personal matter for the boy, but he knew it could not last. Granted, he admitted, Sasuke was a better ninja than him by far, but even when the two of them had been fighting together, the odds had been very much against them. Therefore, as he lay here like a lump of dirt, Sasuke was getting his ass handed back to him.  
  
'I can't feel my legs.' His eyes squeezed shut, his lips formed into a snarl. 'I can't feel any chakra in me. Damn it, heal faster!'  
  
"Is this all you can do?" The blonde heard Itachi sing, his voice carrying like feathers in the wind, "is this all you have, Sasuke?"  
  
'Sasuke, keep fighting!' Naruto silently screamed as he dug deeper in himself to find the strength. 'Keep fighting. I'll be right there. I'll be right there. I'll be..'  
  
Somewhere in this body, there had to be something left, anything. Something had to be there, something he could grab on to, whether it be the last vestiges of his will to survive or the final burst of strength one gets when there is a dire emergency.  
  
'Find it, damn it, and get the fuck up.'  
  
He struggled to find the power to stand, retreating further and further into himself, and the sounds of Sasuke's battle merged with the roaring of blood and frustration in his head. It created an incomprehensible noise that sent his mind spiraling, the sightless vertigo stifling his mind like a coffin. Soon, everything became darker than the deepest of moonless nights, his mind cutting ties with reality and sinking into this disturbing new shadow. Dimly, Naruto realized that he was lost in his own mind, drowning in his quest to find the power that he needed to help Sasuke, to help himself.  
  
'Well, this is fucking rich. Sasuke's so going to laugh at me after this.' The thought drifted and sank, Naruto following in its wake. 'I sure do know how to make a situation worse.' If he had a form here in his mind, he might have laughed. Well, he certainly was fucked now, wasn't he.  
  
He might have drifted forever in his mind laughing at himself if it weren't for a shaft of crimson light that suddenly snared him in its ethereal grip. It pulled at him, tugging him, until he had to acknowledge it. As soon as he did, a powerful voice broke through the shade of his mind to show him the way.  
  
'Deeper, go deeper,' the voice rang, palpable power undulating within it with every syllable, 'go past the darkness, past the person that is Uzumaki Naruto.'  
  
Naruto reached out and felt razor hot inferno sear his mind.  
  
'Deeper. Deeper.' The voice commanded, and he followed without regards to the burning that surrounded his inner mind. 'Come to me.'  
  
The white hot conflagration that surrounded him licked at the edges of his being, scorching the bits and pieces that made him Uzumaki Naruto, seeping into his pores only to burst back out. It hurt, dear lord, did it ever hurt, but Naruto continued towards the voice, ignoring that small voice that told him to run.  
  
'Closer. Closer.'  
  
The fire consumed him, and from the ashes rose a demonic visage, teeth snapping and grinning terribly.  
  
--  
  
It had to be too soon for sunrise, but Sasuke's pain confused mind could only think that the red glowing light emanating at the corner of his eyes had to be the sun rising. The light broke the darkness in half, illuminating the trees and the grass in crimson, coloring his brother's madly grinning face in blood and fire. Wearily standing a scant foot away from his brother, Sasuke risked turning his eyes away to the source of this new light and saw Naruto in the middle of it, shining and glowing like a backlit ruby.  
  
"Well, there's something interesting."  
  
The excitement trembling in Itachi's voice startled Sasuke, the sudden surprise enough to make him lose concentration needed to stay upright. His legs gave and he fell heavily onto the ground on his side, his eyes still on the shining Naruto.  
  
"And I was beginning to think this was a waste of my time." Itachi purred, the words grating on Sasuke's nerves, as he stared avidly at Naruto's approach. "This is going to be quite an exercise."  
  
Sasuke watched from his low position on the ground as the glow subdued, becoming barely visible by the time Naruto got close enough to see clearly. His blond rival was still covered in blood, but the healing process must have kicked into overtime for there were no visible wounds. It relieved Sasuke to see that Naruto had recovered, but a bigger part of his soul shook at the implication of the red glow and the feral, toothy smile that graced the blonde's face.  
  
'Naruto, is that you?' Sasuke thought, his eyes raking over Naruto, 'why do you look so different? Why are you.. not you?'  
  
While Sasuke watched dumbfounded, the blonde stretched, his arms reaching to the skies above his head. Itachi never took his madly circling Sharingan off Naruto, not approaching the apparently unguarded boy, his smile a sight dimmer than it had been a second ago. Lazily, Naruto brought his arms down and patted his legs rhythmically, finally turning his head towards Sasuke who lay on the ground speechless and powerless.  
  
"Sasuke, don't you look pathetic just laying there. I guess it's up to me to get this bastard out of the way."  
  
A fissure of fear spiked through Sasuke. Naruto's voice had not sounded like the usual Naruto; the voice had been laden with so much malice, but more than that, it had quivered with palpable power. And the way he was standing, so relaxed and loose as if he was on a stroll, was wrong. Then there were his eyes - the eyes that Sasuke knew so well, the blue of the skies and the seas. They were not blue any longer, but a color that resembled the blood that stained the golden of his hair, a red lit from behind with interspersed flecks of gold. Everything about Naruto had changed, screaming wrongness and power, a combination that could not bode well for any of them.  
  
"I can almost taste it, Sasuke," Naruto continued, blithely trampling over Sasuke's concerns and shock, "I will taste the sweetness of blood and death." A growling laughter erupted from the blonde and he crouched low, his hands in front of him curled like claws. "See me, Sasuke. Let me show you death."  
  
Sasuke saw Naruto launch himself at Itachi, the smile never fading, and felt the impact of Naruto and Itachi's opposing chakras as they collided. The maelstrom of chakra and power twisted in the woods, sending his battered body flying from the center of it all. Sasuke barely felt his body land, barely heard Sakura's terrified screams; his eyes could not leave Naruto and Itachi locked in battle, their feet digging deep into the ground and chakra swirling like a hurricane around them.  
  
'Naruto, what are you? Why do you have this power?'  
  
That was Sasuke's last coherent thought, then the world faded to crimson and he knew nothing more.  
  
--  
  
Kakashi stopped, his heart thumping wildly his throat. Next to him, Asuma and Kurenai also paused in their mad pursuit of the wrongness as they all felt the intense power washing over them in waves. The silver haired man swallowed thickly and gripped the tree trunk by him hard enough to leave cracks in the bark. This power, this feeling..  
  
"There are two chakras, wouldn't you say?"  
  
The masked ninja was rather surprised that his voice had not trembled with the fear rocketing through his body. He saw Asuma nod in agreement, his face as tense as Kurenai's.  
  
"One.. I haven't felt it since.." Kakashi paused, not knowing how to verbalize the scene swimming in his head. He was saved the trouble by Kurenai who finished his thought.  
  
"Eight years ago. The Uchiha massacre."  
  
Yes. Kakashi could never forget the feel of that chakra, the chakra of the man who had nearly killed him and then mocked him as he coughed his internal organs out of his mouth. Yet, the chakra was so much more powerful now than he remembered, so much more powerful than what he could muster. Hell, it was more powerful than his, Kurenai's and Asuma's chakras combined.  
  
"The second," Asuma lit his cigarette and inhaled to disperse the knot of terror, "is the demon. The Nine-Tailed demon."  
  
"The seal is breaking, then."  
  
Kakashi grimaced, his eyes trained in the direction of where these chakras were coming from. The situation was pretty damned bad. Not only was there the man who could take all three of them out without breaking a sweat over that way, but the seal of the Demon Bound was breaking. This was something that they were not prepared to deal with; in fact, as it was now, it might only be the Third Hokage himself with a platoon of the best ninjas who could deal with the situation at hand. However, that was not an option they had.  
  
"So, you guys ready?" Kakashi straightened and he shifted the crooked headband on his forehead. His left eye emerged from behind the band, the eye that had made him a legendary ninja in his own right.  
  
"Ready, no. Going, yes." Kurenai quipped, her lips in a smirk that would send lesser men fleeing into the woods, "it's not like we have much of a choice."  
  
"It's a good night to die."  
  
"So it is, Asuma." Kakashi answered, "let us not fear death."  
  
The three ninjas took off as one, heading steadily closer to the center of swirling inevitability.  
  
--  
  
TBC  
  
-- 


	7. Faith and DisBelief

Once again, a big thank you to the reviews. They are always appreciated. Now, on with the next chapter.  
  
Warnings: Look out, characters are seemingly OOC. Language can get rough, plots is thickening, my mind has lost its way..  
  
Disclaimer of sorts: I do not own Naruto, but I have plans..  
  
Another warning: this story is going to be long. Very, very long. So, there won't be quick gratifications, dissolutions or climaxes. Just a rambling story. (I think I just lost about 90% of the people who would read this story.)  
  
Faith and (Dis)Belief  
  
The hall had been built only five years ago, using only the finest of sandstone marble mined from the foothills of the Mountains of the Wind, designed to sparkle under the sun and look imposing in the depth of the night. The ceiling vaulted high, supported by curving staves of mahogany, a single chandelier holding a hundred candles hanging in the center, equidistant from the eight windows cut into the marble walls. At the end of the hall was a throne, a high backed contraption of marble and jade, upholstered in velvet of dark colors embroidered by snakeskin and wolf fur. A man sat on the throne, cupping a glass of dark, red wine, supporting his arms on the massive armrests on either side, smirking at the figure standing before him.  
  
The two men were alone in the hall, bathed on all sides from the sunlight filtering in unhindered through the massive windows, neither saying a word but conveying a world of meaning in silence. The one on the throne, his long, dark hair hanging over his pale face, smoothed a delicate hand over the black robe that covered his lithe body, as he concentrated on the wine that he had not yet drunk.  
  
"So," the man on the throne said, "I see you failed."  
  
"Not at all," replied the one standing, his eyes flickering from black to red back to black, "I think I was quite successful."  
  
"Itachi, your mission was to infiltrate and raze Konoha to the ground." He brushed back his dark hair away from his face and took a sip from his wine. "From what I hear, Konoha still stands, more than four hundred of your reserve forces are dead, and you have sustained some injuries."  
  
Itachi touched the light bruise that still stained his cheek and smiled broadly. When had been the last time that he had met an opponent who could injure him? "Your mission and mine are quite different, my liege," he mocked, emphasizing the title in a hiss, "in case you have forgotten, I'm a mercenary. I don't give a damn about your ambitions."  
  
"But you do give a damn about the fact that I paid." The pale skinned man replied, his lips slithering into a smile, "and if I'm not mistaken, mercenaries are loyal to the one who holds the purse strings."  
  
"Then don't pay me. I could care less."  
  
Itachi knew that despite the smile, the man on the throne was not pleased with his actions. Then again, Itachi did not give a damn; his raid into the fifth line of Konoha had provided him with some interesting diversions and information. Moreover, he had been able to see his brother in action and test him to his limits. To him, the mission was a success, far beyond his expectations.  
  
"So.. how is your brother? Did you let him live?"  
  
Itachi wiped all expression from his face and glared at the man. He certainly knew everything, even how to press his sensitive emotional buttons that he had thought erased from his being.  
  
"You know as well as I do, my liege, that I did not kill him. Your spies must have been quite chatty after the night I had."  
  
"Oh, I do know," came the mocking reply, the soft laughter lacing cruelty into the voice, "I know it better than you, actually." He took another sip of the wine and eyed Itachi closely. "Does he still want to kill you? Take vengeance?"  
  
"Of course." Itachi turned on his heels and took striding steps to the massive wooden doors leading out of the hall. The rest of his reply echoed off the marble walls, reverberating in the vaulted ceiling long after he was gone. "Vengeance is what the righteous man brings to the evil man."  
  
When the doors banged shut and he was alone once again, he leaned back in his throne and drained his wine. Surely, Itachi had not done what he had been ordered to do, but not all was lost. The last of the Uchiha, still a child but of enormous potential, had been brought to his attention. As an added bonus, he was now privy to the level of power possessed by the Demon Bound.  
  
"Itachi, I will make sure that your brother can take vengeance upon you." He tapped his empty glass on the armrest, listening to the clear tinkling of the crystal upon stone. "Then I will let him know the truth of everything and finally attain the power of the Uchiha, the power you could not grant me."  
  
--  
  
Voices speaking way too close to him cut into his happy oblivion, sundering the calm void in which he floated. He wished that they would keep it quiet, because if he woke fully, and he knew he would if they continued in the current level of decibels, he would feel the wrath of all the pains he had cheerfully forgotten about in his void. But the voices kept talking, the sound nothing but a thick murmur in his cotton filled head, coherency lost somewhere between his ears and his addled brain.  
  
He did not want to awake, he knew this. When he awoke, there would be a world of physical pain waiting for him, not to mention all the mental anguish he would have to endure. For now, he just wanted to float formlessly, comfortable and forgetting all the things he had seen and felt. Maybe he was a coward for trying to avoid what he would eventually have to face, but what was wrong with trying to delay the inevitable? Nothing, damn it, everyone did it, even the thoughtless, needlessly brave Naruto.  
  
'Naruto?'  
  
The name circled his brain and hooked on to clarity, bringing forth an image of a smiling face with azure eyes and a mop of sunshine hair. However, overlaid on that happy image was a face with fierce, beastly eyes smoldering in bloodlust, lips curled into a vicious smirk that had made his blood run cold. He shrank back from that dichotomous picture, unable to fully comprehend what it was trying to tell him, furthering himself from the voices trying to remind him of things he was intent on forgetting.  
  
"..nothing left.. laying too still.. can't.."  
  
Disjointed words filtered through despite his best efforts, angling into his consciousness and dragging him out of his self-imposed void. He fought his ascent into reality best he could, but one sentence destroyed all his hopes to remain in the nothingness.  
  
"Naruto is gone, isn't he."  
  
The void disappeared and Sasuke opened his eyes. Above him, the white sheet making the ceiling of the tent fluttered, practically translucent from the light filtering through the thin material. Small shadows from trees above danced on the tent and little motes of dirt drifted through the air, but he noticed none of that, because out of his peripheral vision, he could see Kakashi and the other three commanders of his battalion sitting around a small unlit brazier not two feet away from the bed in which he lay, talking about something impossible.  
  
Naruto was not gone. That was absolutely, unequivocally impossible.  
  
"Is there nothing we can do?"  
  
The worry lining Kurenai's voice, so thick and heavy, made Sasuke turn his head to fully view the four officers. None of them realized that he had finally awoken, not even hearing the light rustle his hair had made against the pillow.  
  
"If there was," Sasuke saw Kakashi run a tired hand over his masked face, "we would've done it by now."  
  
Do what? What in the world were those four babbling about when Naruto just had to be fine? Naruto had been fully healed when he had.. had..  
  
"We must send him back to Konoha, at least to get his Seal monitored."  
  
That was it. Someone was going to explain to him just what the hell had happened and what they were talking about even if he had to throttle it out of them.  
  
Now if he could just get his voice to work, the plan would be a go.  
  
"We know it didn't break. Somehow, it's still intact, but the strain on Naruto's mind must have been too great." Asuma dropped his unlit cigarette into the brazier and took out a fresh one to worry. "In the least, we should be grateful that the demon isn't free."  
  
Frustrated that his larynx would not cooperate, Sasuke raised himself onto his elbows, noting that it was rather painful to do so. For the first time, it occurred to him to look over himself and it vaguely surprised him to find that he was nearly mummified by the bandages covering his body. Had he been so wounded that it required so much medical treatment?  
  
"Sakura won't say what happened," he heard Gai say in an uncharacteristically subdued tone, "and insists that she didn't see anything."  
  
"If only Sasuke would wake up," Kakashi sighed, not having noticed Sasuke's upright position, "then we could get some kind of a story."  
  
Right as Kakashi finished, Sasuke lost the strength he had in his arms and fell heavily onto the bed with enough noise to finally attract the attention of the four commanding officers. Even before his head settled fully into the pillow, four faces hovered above his, all peering at him closely in relief and apprehension.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
Sasuke tried to smirk at the ridiculous question posed to him by Kurenai, but his lips chapped and crackled from the movement. Wincing, Sasuke shook his head, and that was enough for Asuma to present him with a glass of water and an arm to help him sit up. He had not known that he was thirsty, but once the cooling liquid dripped onto his lips, he found that he had to restrain himself from gulping it all down. He ignored the four concerned faces staring at him as he drank as reserved as possible, his eyes focused on an innocuous spot just beyond Kakashi's right shoulder.  
  
"How.." Sasuke ventured as soon as the glass was empty and settled on the bed again, "how many days?"  
  
"Three days." Kakashi answered after only a small hesitation. "Asuma, Kurenai and I found you, Naruto and Sakura in a clearing not very far from the old camp site." Kakashi ignored Gai's crying lament that he had been left out, his visible eye never leaving Sasuke's intent glare as he continued. "None of you were conscious, the clearing was scorched beyond recognition and the enemy was gone. We did not find that body."  
  
In other words, his brother had somehow managed to survive that encounter. More accurately, they had survived his brother. The how and why of their survival, Sasuke still could not be sure, but he knew that it had to do with what had happened to Naruto.  
  
"Naruto?"  
  
Sasuke's heart sank when Kakashi turned his face away, presenting him with the profile of his covered eye. What he had heard could not be true, yet if that were the case, why couldn't Kakashi look him in the eyes and tell him that the idiot was fine?  
  
"He still hasn't awoken." Kurenai answered in Kakashi's stead, her face settling into a resigned mask. "We think he never will at this rate."  
  
"But he's alive, right?" Desperation drove Sasuke upright once more, the twinges of pain in his arms forgotten. "He's breathing, his heart is beating, right?"  
  
Kurenai nodded and felt her heart break when Sasuke sighed in relief. How could she tell him that even though the body was healed and alive, the mind had been splintered to the point of no recovery? For three days, ever since they had found the three missing soldiers, they had tried every jutsu and technique they knew to revive Naruto's mind from the wreckage of his inner self, but to no avail. Where Naruto's vibrant and obnoxious self should have been, there was nothing but a blank space, a landscape devoid of humanity. The demon in its efforts to break free from the seal had somehow destroyed Naruto's mind.  
  
The only silver lining in the whole mess was that the demon was nowhere to be found either. Kakashi had feared that with Naruto's mind a blank slate, the demon would have risen up to take up the void and control the body, but the demon had also disappeared from within Naruto. None of them could quite figure where in the hell two presences, especially ones as strong as Naruto and the demon could go and just vanish, but that was the situation as it stood.  
  
So, yes, the physical body was fine. It was in peak health, to be truthful, but it was just an empty shell. Being dead might have been more merciful.  
  
"Can you tell me what happened to Naruto?"  
  
Could they answer him satisfactorily? Could they really explain to him how Naruto had become that terrible being with enough power to drive Itachi away, if Naruto really relished the death shining out of his unnaturally red eyes?  
  
"I wish I could tell you, Sasuke." Kakashi moved away from the young soldier's bed side to stand facing the flapping entrance of the tent. His shoulders tensed as he heard Sasuke's growl, knowing that his answer frustrated the dark haired boy. "Certain things, we must tell Naruto first." If he ever woke up, that is.  
  
"Where is he? I want to see him." Even though things that he could not explain had happened, one thing was for certain. Naruto had actually saved his life. And it was wrong that the idiot wasn't just bursting into the tent with his loud voice, bragging about his heroics and rubbing it into his face.  
  
"He's in a sealed tent and no one is allowed to see him."  
  
"Do I look like I give a damn?" Sasuke turned his enraged face to Asuma, making no effort to suppress the ugly feelings boiling over in his heart. "I have to see him."  
  
"Don't be foolish." Kakashi walked over and tapped Sasuke on his chest, sending a line of pain racing up his sternum to make his vision swim. Sasuke fell back onto the pillow, breathing shallowly. "One touch and you fall over. You're in no condition to move. Stay put."  
  
Gritting his teeth until the enamel ripped off, Sasuke could only watch as his commanding officers nodded and left the tent. Kakashi was right, he could not move without feeling enormous amounts of pain – but that would not stop him from seeing Naruto.  
  
'Why are you so adamant on seeing that idiot? Why don't you just let it be?'  
  
Sasuke snorted at his own mind questioning his motives, but hell if he knew why he had this burning desire to see Naruto, to see him safe, alive and smiling.  
  
Hell if he knew why Naruto mattered so much.  
  
--  
  
Ino carefully set down the breakfast tray she had brought for Sakura on the little table by the bed, knowing that her friend was in no mood to eat. She had healed, most of her grave injuries having been treated almost immediately after Kakashi, Kurenai and Asuma had brought them back, but her mind had yet to completely come to grips with whatever it was that had happened. All she knew was that Sasuke was in a coma, Naruto was secreted away in a quarantined tent and Sakura had barely said three words together since she came back.  
  
"So, Shikamaru told me today that I have issues with my image." Ino put a happy face on and began her inane chatter in a voice that made daisies seem downright depressing. She arranged the tray in front of Sakura, taking covers off of the dishes, babbling about whatever topic that entered her head. She could not do much for her friend, but she could at least pretend that everything was okay.  
  
Sakura listened with half an ear as Ino talked on about various things, her green eyes dull as tarnished copper. She still could not forget that last image in her head, Naruto's awful expression and comments swimming around in her head. If that wasn't bad enough, Itachi's taunts and his casual demolishment of Naruto and Sasuke crowded in with the other image, making her head a veritable sea of chaos.  
  
Was she in shock? Did she have the symptoms? She knew that at night, she could not sleep because she knew nightmares were waiting for her to close her eyes, ready to pounce and wring her dry. During the day, her dazed mind played through the traumatic events in the woods, of Itachi and Sasuke, of Naruto who had said things that she never imagined the boy would say. Some images came to her clearly, like a painting done in vivid colors, but some images were blurry and dreary, as if she had seen it through a stained glass window of the darkest scarlet.  
  
Everyday, one of the commanding officers came by to see her under the pretenses of seeing how she was coping, but she knew better. Even if she denied it to them, they knew that she had seen the enemy in the woods, that she had seen the events that had unfolded before her eyes like an unrolling silk screen. They wanted to know the details, the horrifying things that she had seen.  
  
She should tell them, it would probably help out Sasuke and Naruto if they knew Itachi had trapped them in a genjutsu and that Naruto had changed. But the words would not form, her lips only mouthing out patently lackluster and frankly unbelievable denials of knowledge. Every time she tried to tell them something, her voice locked and nothing emerged.  
  
Sakura raised her head slightly to avoid the steam from the rice watering her vision and saw her friend Ino, sitting on her bed with a smile wide enough to crack, talking up a storm about inconsequential things. The long haired blonde had shown up at least three times a day with her meals, always with that smile and demeanor, never asking her about what had happened. Most of the times, Sakura paid her no attention, too lost in her own nightmarish dreamscape, but for some reason, right now, she wanted to listen. She wanted to hear what Ino had to say, what her best friend would do when she found out about the turmoil whirling in her mind.  
  
"Ino.." Sakura whispered, her voice a tinny scratch on glass. Immediately, Ino stopped talking and smiled beatifically at Sakura, putting on an expression that reminded Sakura of mothers and saints.  
  
"How is everyone?"  
  
There, she had said something. Ino had never told her the news with Sasuke and Naruto in all her rambles, keeping to things that she thought would not upset the delicate Sakura. But even if she was still traumatized or whatever, she should have inquired about her friends and comrades sooner, right? After all, the only reason she was alive to hear Ino chatter and have ghostly nightmares, was because of Sasuke and Naruto.  
  
"Oh, fine. You should've seen Kiba asking Shino if he could communicate with fleas. I thought Shino was going to-"  
  
"Stop it, Ino!" Sakura punched the top of her tray, sending foodstuff flying onto the floor. Ino looked on, her face still split into that forever smile, but her eyes wary and somehow proud. "Stop it. I know I'm weak and I know I haven't been the best soldier. But I need you to tell me now." Tears prickled at the corners of her jade eyes, pooling at the shallows, threatening to fall. "Tell me, please. How are they?"  
  
"Sasuke is in the tent next to yours. He's still sleeping." She let the news settle before she plunged into the more disturbing one. "Naruto is in quarantine, and from what they won't say, it's pretty bad."  
  
Sakura twirled a bit of her long, pink hair in her fingers, an old nervous habit emerging at the behest of bad news. However, she swallowed the lumpy tears and nodded to Ino to continue.  
  
"Whatever it was that happened to you three, it must've been bad, huh?" When Sakura nodded, Ino sighed, reaching out to hold Sakura's hand. "Well, that's all I know. No one's talking, most especially you."  
  
"I know," Sakura breathed, "I know I have to say something. But when I try, I can't. I really can't, Ino. I don't even know how to begin."  
  
Unable to watch Sakura's pained face any longer, Ino scooted forward and enfolded her hurting friend in a warm hug, fiercely holding onto the girl who was her best friend.  
  
"It's okay, Sakura." Ino patted her back soothingly, letting her voice gentle into a bare whisper. "It's okay to cry, to admit that it scares you."  
  
Ino held her as the dam burst and the tears flowed, rocking the shaking form back and forth, glad that her friend had finally come out of that frozen shell and feeling her heart squeeze at the pain that welled forth from each wracking sob.  
  
--  
  
The darkness in the tent, unblemished but for the glowing banked fire in the brazier, enveloped him like a blanket. The day had been hard, what with all the people coming in and out of his tent. First, he had woken from three day's worth of nothing only to face the concerns and ravaging worries about Naruto. Then the news that he had finally regained consciousness had flooded into the camp and all manners of people had come to see him.  
  
All but Naruto.  
  
He had stoically borne the attention of his four commanding officers who had come in intermittently throughout the day to ask him about Itachi and the occurrences that had led to such a catastrophic destruction of a mile radius wide area. He had answered the best he could, told them everything that he had seen, and had seen Kakashi's one eye light up when he had mentioned the Sharingan. They had not seemed too surprised about anything else though, only grunting distastefully when Itachi was mentioned and showing no reaction whatsoever at Naruto's seeming transformation and sudden acquisition of power.  
  
If that had not been draining enough, he had been subjected to the 121's version of a hospital visit. First, Sakura had come in to sob into his bed, apologizing for all manner of things and brokenly asking for forgiveness at her inactions. Thank the gods that Ino had been there to mitigate that because Sasuke had been at a complete loss as to how to behave. He had sent her off by telling her that she had nothing to be sorry for, only to make her cry even harder, and had received a small nod of acknowledgement from Ino for his efforts.  
  
Shortly thereafter, the rest of them had come barging in, questioning him about everything that had happened. Apparently, whatever the commanders had told the rest of the 121 had not been quite enough to satisfy their curiosity and they as a collective, had decided to descend upon him like a swarm of locusts. His head still spun from the flurry of questions for which he had no answers, and they might still be here in the middle of the night asking him things if Kakashi had not come in to chase them all out.  
  
Now, it was silent and dark, and he was left alone with his own thoughts. All of them circled around Naruto, but then again, as of late, Naruto seemed to be the only thing in his mind.  
  
How strange and perturbing.  
  
Whatever the case, he would force his way into Naruto's tent tomorrow, damn the seals and quarantines, to see his idiot rival. Then, after he made sure that the boy was alive and drag him back into the world of the conscious, he would ponder why he thought of Naruto so much and get his head examined fully.  
  
--  
  
"How long do you suppose we'll be here?"  
  
Hint of a chuckle brushed by him, leaving behind an unpleasant tingle. Naruto ignored it and merely waited for the answer, knowing that sooner or later, it would have to come.  
  
'Stupid brat.' The chuckle died and a firestorm of rage smothered Naruto before dissipating like a waft of smoke. 'We're here because of you and you dare to ask me how long?'  
  
"Like I actually know what the fuck is going on." Naruto settled comfortably, imagining that he was leaning against something soft and cushy. "You're the one who tried to take me over, ain't ya?"  
  
'You asked for power. Did I not give it to you?'  
  
"Sure, but I didn't say, hey, come take my body and try to erase me from all of existence."  
  
Naruto knew that this was all in his head. The voice, the arguments, everything. Still, that made it no less annoying; he still could not find that light, the brightness of consciousness. So, here he was, stuck with that ominous presence that had seduced him into a coma. If he had not been so damned stubborn, the voice would have taken him over completely, and then who knew what could've happened?  
  
'You worthless child. If I inhabit that crude thing you call a body, it would be so powerful that this pitiful thing you called war would be over in a blink.'  
  
The arrogance and malice dripping from that voice was practically solid, forcing Naruto to repress that stab of fear. If he was going to win against this.. thing in his head, he had to be strong.  
  
"Yeah, sure, but you would destroy everything after, I know it."  
  
'Don't presume to know me, foolish brat.' The malice disappeared and wistfulness took its place. 'I was roaming the untamed skies before your ancestors even knew how to make fire.'  
  
"Whoop dee fucking doo. Now you're stuck in my fucking head. Nice going."  
  
'You jest at something you do not comprehend, human child.' If the voice had a body, it would be slithering all over him. 'Do you even know who I am, what I am?'  
  
"You're power. You're pretty fucking evil. And.. uh.." Naruto paused more for lack of words than dramatics. "You really hate me."  
  
'So I do, little fool, so I do. Not only are you my prison, but you have also become my keeper.'  
  
"What the hell." Naruto sighed, exasperated by the non-answers and the strange statements. "Stop being so mysteriously creepy and just say shit out straight, would you? Shit, you sound like Sasuke being all cryptic like that."  
  
'Ah, yes, the Uchiha boy.' Something in that tone bothered Naruto, the way it seemed to sharpen to unseen edges. 'Your little secret, even from yourself.'  
  
"Huh?" Was it even possible to understand the situation and the conversation any less?  
  
'Foolish human, just leave me be. You annoy me.'  
  
Man, was it him or was this voice in his head a moody son of a bitch?  
  
"I'd leave, if I knew how."  
  
'You know, little brat.' The voice spat, venom racing through the tone. Naruto had a feeling that if he and the voice had corporeal bodies in his headscape, then well, the voice would be strangling the hell out of him right now. 'You know things instinctively, much like I do. You trapped us in here by pure instinct. So get yourself out by instinct.'  
  
"Do you have any idea how little sense you make?"  
  
'Cease and desist your inane questions. I tire of them.' The voice became distant, growing softer and harder to hear. 'Just leave me, leave here, knowing that you have won in a contest of wills against the great Nine- Tails and live to tell it.'  
  
Then it was silent and for the first time since he had come to this white space in his head, Naruto felt that he was truly alone. No voice, no evil presence, just him and this blank, dead place. He only had to get out, but before that, he had to get over the overwhelming sense of disbelief first.  
  
"The great what!?"  
  
--  
  
TBC 


	8. The Uncertain Paths of Emotions

The reviews were very positive and I appreciated every last word. Gives me a funny feeling (in a good way) in my tummy, it does. Anyway, here's the next part, let's hope it's satisfactory.  
  
Warnings: a lull, mood swings, swearing, grammar mistakes I have not caught.  
  
Disclaimer: Naruto, not mine.  
  
--  
  
The Uncertain Paths of Emotions  
  
It had taken the better part of a lovely, sunny morning for Sasuke to get out of his tent undetected and unfettered. For the first time in his life, he had feigned weakness to get rid of the people hanging about him, most especially Sakura who was determined to 'take care' of him. She had come in at first light bearing a host of foods and medicines, fresh bandages hanging off the tray's edge, smiling like a loon and scaring the wits out of him with her forced cheer. He had a feeling that mostly, she was not there to take care of him but to ease her guilt. After all, a person did not go from shocked silence to crying lamentations to chipper cheer in just one day.  
  
Even knowing that Sakura was doing it to make herself feel better, Sasuke could not get rid of her fast enough. Unfortunately, other people had come to ruin his well laid plans as well, and the sun had reached almost its apex before he had finally just collapsed and claimed extreme tiredness, causing the people around him to quickly leave to let him rest.  
  
Little did they know that he planned on no rest, just a bit of a stealth mission into Naruto's quarantine tent.  
  
After doing a simple jutsu to put a replacement body in the bed, Sasuke slipped out of the tent, keeping a careful eye out for anyone who could possibly send him back to rest. His legs felt a bit rubbery, but they were up to the task of brushing across the grass without leaving a mark. With nary a noise, Sasuke flitted towards the quarantine tent, the only tent with distinct drawn seals on the fabric and guards around the perimeter.  
  
Four guards, two in the front and two in the back, stood in various stages of the slouch, each of them looking terribly bored about their posts. However, Sasuke could see past the image, the pretense, and see the glint of duty and determination painting their eyes. It was as if they were guarding something more precious than an innocent soul, more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose.  
  
More than the guards, the seals worried him. He did not recognize them, not at all, and he could not exactly ask Kakashi to explain it to him. Sasuke knew that he was well versed in many of the jutsus and the seals, but it seemed, the knowledge he possessed would not be enough to get him into that tent unnoticed. From the reactions his commanding officers had given the day before, he knew that if he wanted to see Naruto, it would have to be in secret and in silence.  
  
Achieving that, though.. maybe he should have thought about it a mite bit more.  
  
He crouched in his hiding place, a well placed shrubbery that blended like a second skin in a forest of this type, contemplating his choices. He had various scenarios and ideas that he considered then discarded, each plan becoming harder to put into action in reality. If he got around the guards, then the seals would get him. If he found a way around the seals.. well, how the hell did he do that when he did not know anything about them?  
  
"I'll take you, okay?"  
  
If Sasuke had not been a well trained ninja with good reflexes and control over his reactions, he would have screamed like a five year old girl with a mouse down her dress.  
  
"Kakashi." Sasuke turned his head carefully, craning his neck to look up at the mildly amused commander, his black eyes betraying nothing of his thumping heart about to make a jumping leap from his mouth. "Why didn't you say so before I went through all this trouble?"  
  
"Oh, no reason, really," Kakashi mumbled through his mask, his face as unreadable and placid as ever, "I just enjoyed watching the skulking."  
  
"I do not skulk," Sasuke retorted, getting up to stand and brushing dirt off his medical gown of drab, sullen gray that covered him to his knees. "I stealth."  
  
"I think 'stealth' is not a verb."  
  
"I think you're an ass."  
  
Kakashi considered that for a moment. "Quite right."  
  
--  
  
Naruto laid on the bed, covered to his chin in a white sheet that Sasuke knew to be scratchy. His face betrayed no expression, his hair laid in a tangle around his face and his form was unnaturally still. Sasuke could remember spending all those nights in the bed next to Naruto as his roommate, getting annoyed and frustrated by the blonde who could not keep quiet even when asleep. Naruto had been prone to sleep talking, thrashing his limbs around until the blankets bunched up and eventually hog tied him, forever making noise even when he was supposed to be quiet.  
  
Therefore, this Naruto who lied like he was dead was not right.  
  
He felt the weight of Kakashi's stare on his back, but he let it wash over him. In this tent lit only by the softly filtered sunlight, there was no Kakashi, no guards peering in through the gaps in the tent. No, in this moment, only he and Naruto were present, one sleeping as if dead and the other standing over that stilled form, dressed in bandages and a robe.  
  
"Hey, idiot." Sasuke sat on the edge of the bed, his weight barely displacing the sheets that covered the blonde, and rested his hand near Naruto's arm. "Don't you look pathetic, laying there like a lump."  
  
Only shallow breathing answered him and a slow burning gnaw began in his stomach. According to what Kakashi had told him in their short walk to the tent, Naruto had been like this since he had been found, still and silent. What surprised Sasuke more was that Kakashi had gravely informed him that Naruto's mind was gone, that even the most well trained medics with training in mental revival had not found any traces of that boisterous idiot's personality. However, Sasuke refused to believe that Naruto could just abandon his body and the world like that. If anything, the idiot fought tooth and nail to be the person that he is, never letting the barbs and insults of Konoha's denizens get to him, never letting the outside forces win against his indomitable spirit.  
  
'There is no way you would just leave yourself.' Sasuke smiled, his hand gripping the sheet into a hard ball, 'no possible way that you won't find your way back.'  
  
Minutes passed into an hour, and still Sasuke did not make motions to leave Naruto's side. Outside, the guards who had peeped out of curiosity had long lost interest and wandered back to their posts, and Kakashi had taken a seat on an unstable stool to doze off by the flap of the tent. Sasuke, however, sat still on the bed, looking at Naruto, his mind shouting quiet encouragements to the unconscious idiot whom he knew to be stronger than this.  
  
"What happened to you, Naruto?" Sasuke leaned forward so that his face was mere inches from Naruto's sleeping one, his dark eyes hidden by the fall of his hair. "What was it that took you over? It's because I know you. I know you, and that was not entirely you."  
  
As expected, no answers came, and Sasuke sat upright again, his mouth in a scowl. However, looking at that face that had haunted him for an entire night, the scowl smoothed out to a small smile, gentle but playful. It was a sweet sight, the dark haired boy staring at the blonde one, a study of contrasts that melded into a picturesque scene. Kakashi watched through the crack of his eyelid, smirking inwardly at the lovely tableau, wondering if he should take a picture of this touching scene and blackmail his soldiers for all their worth later on in life.  
  
The silver haired ninja restrained the muscles of his cheeks from forming a smile when Sasuke reached out with his right hand and softly brushed his fingers over Naruto's cheek, almost caressing the skin marred only by the permanent scars that gave Naruto his fox like face. It was so gentle, so sweet, that Kakashi literally fell out of his chair in surprise when that same caressing hand went out far to Sasuke's side, to fall in a sharp crack of a slap across the same cheek that it had touched only moments before in reverence.  
  
'Tough love, there..' Kakashi could only dumbly think as he tried to extricate himself off the floor and the fallen stool. He had barely gotten his feet under him when Sasuke raised his hand again and backhanded Naruto's yet untouched cheek in another vicious slap, leaving behind a red print to match the one already rising like a blush in the other cheek.  
  
"What are you doing?" Brushing back his silver hair, Kakashi sauntered towards the bed, his hands at his sides. Sasuke deigned to turn his head slightly at Kakashi's approach, his dark eyes sparkling with an unreadable emotion, but did not stop in raising his hand again for another hit.  
  
"I realized something." Slap. "Naruto isn't the kind of idiot who likes quiet words and gentle support." Smack. "He needs this, the damned moron." Crack. "Wake up, you empty headed bastard."  
  
Kakashi did not stop Sasuke's slapping, nor did he comment on what he had heard. In a way, Sasuke had made sense, albeit a strange, warped kind of a sense. Anyhow, this was one method that had not been tried before, so who was he to say that it would not work?  
  
After about the tenth slap, Sasuke felt the sting in his hand and opted for another method of violence. He picked up Naruto by the collar of his medical gown, the same, gray one that he was wearing, and shook him, rolling the blond head about the shoulders with the force.  
  
"Hey, Naruto," Sasuke said, his voice hard but not loud, "don't you want to wake up and see why the hell you are letting me beat on you?"  
  
'Well, that's going to cause some whiplash.' The thought surfaced as a mild expression on Kakashi's face, his hand rubbing his chin slowly. He wondered briefly if he should put a stop to Sasuke's abuse of a defenseless boy, but chucked the idea when he detected a trace of desperation underlying the dark haired soldier's measured words.  
  
"Idiot, don't you have things you want to say to me?" The shaking became more frantic, sending strands of blond hair to fly about in abandon. "Don't you want to tell me how much better you are than me?"  
  
No matter how sorry he felt for Sasuke, Kakashi could not let this go on for much longer. Despite the fact that Naruto healed physically at a rate that was inhuman, all this shaking was probably going to cause brain damage, something Naruto could not afford. Sighing softly, Kakashi moved to drag Sasuke away from Naruto, but was thwarted in his efforts by the unconscious blonde himself.  
  
Naruto moved.  
  
Kakashi's right eyebrow climbed steadily into his hairline as Naruto's hand came up to clutch at Sasuke's that had him by the throat. The shaking stopped immediately, Sasuke's surprised and pleased eyes staring at the hand that had him by the wrist, squeezing hard enough to turn the knuckles white and cut off his circulation.  
  
"Stop.." A raspy voice emerged from Naruto, scratchy from disuse but no less irate for it. "Stop shaking me, asshole."  
  
Sasuke watched in mute fascination as Naruto struggled to open his eyes, wrinkling his forehead in effort. The hand grasping his wrist never let up and he felt his hand tingle from lack of proper circulation, but he dared not turn away. He had to see Naruto's eyes to make sure that they were his, the blue of a cloudless sky, not the red.  
  
"Is this how you treat an injured person, jackhole?" Naruto opened his eyes half way, revealing blue orbs so intensely bright that breath left Sasuke. "I save your sorry ass and I gotta wake to you trying to kill me?"  
  
Sasuke recovered from whatever that had his throat tight quickly and responded, his lips quirking into his trademark smirk. "At least you're awake, idiot. And you're not injured at all, so stop your whining." His smirk widened when Naruto's eyes opened fully to stare at him incredulously. "Were you going to sleep forever, idiot?"  
  
Angry and somewhat disconcerted at Sasuke's proximity, Naruto sputtered before he could get actual, recognizable words out. "If this is what I get, then shit, asshole, I'd rather go back to that white space talking to that-"  
  
An uncomfortable silence fell, Naruto's jaw agape from what he could not say and staring unseeing into Sasuke's puzzled face. The moments he had spent lost in the white place came rushing back to him in a flood, the words, the evil, the final revelation. The memories of his fight against Itachi also came in a fast blur, accompanied by unfamiliar emotions, and they all blended together to create a havoc in his newly conscious mind.  
  
Abruptly, Naruto wrenched off Sasuke's hands now lax from inattention and pushed the dark haired boy off the bed. Sasuke let him, confused and worried about Naruto's sudden change in mood and behavior, staggering on unsteady feet. The look on the blonde's face, his brows crinkled and his mouth twisted in disgust, made him keep the questions from being voiced.  
  
"Well, now, Naruto, shouldn't you be happier about being awake?"  
  
Dull blue eyes flickered towards Kakashi, taking in the nonchalant face and relaxed form in one quick glance. Sasuke warily watched, unsure of what to say, how to react, as his commanding officer strolled to Naruto's side. The blond ninja started a bit when Kakashi reached out and touched his forehead with his index finger, but otherwise did not move. Sasuke tensed when he felt a trickle of chakra from Kakashi, his muscles settling into a stance for defense. Then, common sense kicked in, identified Kakashi as an ally instead of an enemy, and Sasuke forced his body to let go. How much a fool was he to think Kakashi would hurt Naruto and why would he even think about protecting the idiot?  
  
'Denial must be hard,' Kakashi mused as he saw Sasuke's subtle change in posture and the struggle to keep it as innocuous as possible. 'Fifteen is not the best age for figuring anything out.'  
  
The masked ninja scanned Naruto's mind, checking for anomalies and defects. Although he was not an expert on these things, his specialties lay elsewhere, he knew what to look for and to a certain extent, what to fix. It was surprising that a violent attack from Sasuke woke Naruto when countless complex jutsus developed over centuries had no effect, but results were results. The blonde was awake and boy, did he ever wake noisily. All he had to do was confirm that this was indeed Naruto, though there was little doubt that it was from his behavior so far, and that he had not brought back a passenger with him in the form of a demon.  
  
"Good, good." Kakashi lowered his hand and nodded thoughtfully. "It's just you."  
  
"Just.. me." Naruto stared hard at his commanding officer who gave him a hint of a smile through the mask. "What is that supposed to.." Words died on his lips and his eyes widened impossibly as several things clicked at once. Kakashi's relief, the smile, the words..  
  
"You know." It was a statement, not a question. "You.. you fucking know, don't you?"  
  
A growl erupted from low in his throat as he launched out of the bed to grab Kakashi by his green vest. Barely balanced on his toes, his hands fisted roughly in the coarse material of the uniform vest, Naruto stared up at the taller ninja in shocked accusation.  
  
"You know that.. that thing.." So many things he wanted to say, to scream, but the words caught and came out in a tumble. "Who else knows? Just you? Why.. how.."  
  
Calmly, Kakashi rested his hands on Naruto's shoulders, looking down at the enraged ninja with a bit of apprehension.  
  
"Relax, Naruto. Calm down."  
  
The soft commands grated on Naruto further, and instead of blunting the edges of his anger, it exacerbated the fires of his rage.  
  
"Don't fucking tell me to calm down!" Spittle flew from his mouth and his hands grabbed on harder. "How can I when you know? You know about.. Damn it to hell, Nine-Tails.."  
  
A thick silence spread out in the small tent as the last of Naruto's words died down in an uneasy echo. Kakashi grimaced, his visible eye narrowing to a slit, as he disengaged Naruto's hands from his vest and pushed down the blonde onto the bed. Naruto's expression faltered with the movement, going from angry to sullen resignation in a heartbeat, and he sat, staring helplessly at the floor.  
  
"Nine-Tails?"  
  
A jolt ran through Naruto's system at the unbelieving voice and his head sharply turned to face Sasuke, standing not three feet away from him.  
  
'Oh shit, Sasuke.. he's still here!' What the hell was he doing, blurting out shit like that with him still within hearing distance! How was he going to explain this? Could he even try?  
  
Sasuke pushed Kakashi out of the way, the silver haired ninja allowing the shove to his chest, and grabbed Naruto by his shoulders. Dark eyes flashed with a mess of emotions as they stared hard into panicked blues, but the hands remained gentle on the shoulders.  
  
Nothing was said, no words uttered. Between the two boys, tension mounted, one arising from confusion, the other from wordless panic. Kakashi wondered if he should break up this scene, drag Sasuke out of the tent and explain the situation to Naruto in privacy, but yet again, Naruto surprised him.  
  
As sudden as his awakening, Naruto wrenched away from Sasuke's steady eyes, turning his head away with a snarl. With surprising strength borne of desperation, Naruto pushed aside both Sasuke and Kakashi, his feet a steady fast staccato on the bare, dirt floor of the tent, as he hurled his body into the exiting flap of the tent.  
  
Perhaps Kakashi should have told Naruto that the tent was in quarantine and only a special jutsu could get a person in and out of the tent, but alas, he had not the chance to mention it to the distraught blonde. Therefore, instead of the intense, dramatic exit that it should have been, Naruto ended up running into an invisible barrier flat out, his arms and legs out at spread eagle, his nose squished up against solid air and his mouth muttering curses to high heavens.  
  
"Motherfucking.. Ow.." Naruto carefully peeled his flattened body off the barrier, holding his bruised nose in his hands. "What in seven hells.."  
  
"Ah, yes." The commanding officer put his hand in front of his masked face to hide the tell tale lines of a grin forming. "I forgot to mention that this tent is sealed."  
  
"How fucking convenient of you," Naruto complained, turning around to shoot the silver haired man a glare that could have pulverized steel. "And stop your damned laughing! I can see it!"  
  
The tension that had been so solid only moments before evaporated, leaving Sasuke feeling rather hollow inside. Into that space, something odd bubbled over as he watched Naruto berate Kakashi for letting him run into the barrier unwarned. He knew that if he started laughing now, it would be taken very badly, and besides, that kind of went against his reputation for being very composed and stoic. Still, the picture of Naruto comically spread out on the barrier tickled his throat, almost enough to make him forget that he had been shocked, confused and had heard something very strange only moments ago.  
  
"Idiot," Sasuke said, his voice only wavering slightly from the suppressed laughter, "why don't you sit down before you hurt yourself more?"  
  
"Shut up, asshole."  
  
However, Naruto took the advice and shuffled back to the bed, gingerly sitting with his elbows resting on his knees. His eyes shifted back to Sasuke, spikes of blond hair shifting restlessly on his head, and gave him a thorough once-over with a grimace.  
  
"Man, you're all messed up, ain't you?" His eyes paused on Sasuke's crossed arms covered in bandages, then advanced further up to look him in his dark eyes. "Itachi really got you, huh?"  
  
Swallowing the vile taste the name conjured up, Sasuke shrugged, feeling a bit of a twinge from his quite unhealed muscles. "Yeah, he did." But he had hurt Naruto as well, if not more. "Nothing I can't handle, though."  
  
"Is he really your brother?"  
  
"Yes." What would be the point in denying that now, after all that had happened?  
  
"Why was he trying to kill you, then?"  
  
'Because he killed everyone who ever mattered to me,' thought Sasuke, the scene from eight years ago flitting through his mind. 'Because I'm the only one left in the Uchiha clan.'  
  
Instead, he answered, "none of your business, idiot."  
  
For a moment, it seemed that Naruto would burst out with various accusations and tell him to go stuff his business up his ass. After all, hadn't Itachi tried to kill not only him but Naruto as well? Yet, no words came, not even an accusing finger pointed his way. Instead, he saw the anger in Naruto freeze over as he broke eye contact to stare at the floor.  
  
"Yeah, you're right." It wasn't as if they were friends, as if they could tell each other the deep, dark secrets in their hearts. So, there should be no earthly reason why Sasuke's answer shot that lance of pain through him. "Sorry I asked."  
  
Sighing into the latest uncomfortable silence in the tent, Kakashi walked to the tent flap and performed the jutsu that would dispel the barrier. It would be better for these two if they were separated now, before they could say more things to hurt each other's feelings. As it was, the damage incurred seemed bad enough, if their iced over non-communication was of any indication. When the seal was undone, Kakashi used gentle force to guide Sasuke out of the tent, the boy following behind him dejectedly with feet dragging.  
  
"Wait," Sasuke whispered, his feet stopping just short of a complete exit, "what were you talking about, Naruto? Nine-Tails?"  
  
A short, pregnant pause followed and Kakashi berated himself in his mind for not bodily carrying the Uchiha heir out before he spoke.  
  
"You don't have the right to ask me that." Naruto's response was unusually cold, sending an unwelcome shiver down Sasuke's spine. "To quote you, none of your business."  
  
Feeling as if he lost something, Sasuke walked out of the tent with a heavy heart. Maybe it was a good time to get that head exam he had been contemplating, because there was no reason that he should feel the nausea building in his stomach or the slow tightening in his chest.  
  
--  
  
Hinata walked briskly, yet ladylike, holding a steaming pot in her hands. The news that Naruto had finally woken up had brushed through the camp like a forest fire and she had spent the last three hours preparing a wake-up gift for the blonde energy bomb. Her face flushed from excitement and a bit of nervousness, she tread towards the quarantine tent which was no longer under lock and seal.  
  
From what Kurenai had told the rest of the 121, Naruto had come back to them in perfect mind and health, much to her relief. Hinata had spent three sleepless nights worried sick over the loud ninja who always had something outrageous to say. Kurenai had warned them he would not be ready for visitors for several hours, but that had been well, several hours ago. By now, she should be able to see Naruto and offer him a gift for so bravely fighting to come back to life.  
  
She was no more than a few shy steps away from seeing Naruto's tent in her view when suddenly, she found herself flanked on either side by girls from her battalion. To her left, Ino stared at the steaming pot in her hand curiously, her blond hair falling over one shoulder, and to her right, Sakura glanced at her rapidly blushing face with rapt attention. Belatedly, Hinata saw that TenTen was also with them, smiling encouragingly from her far right, her eyebrows waggling.  
  
"So, what is this?" A delicate sniff followed Ino's question, eliciting an approving squeal. "Oh, it's ramen!"  
  
"Right.. ramen." Sakura nodded knowingly, slyly grinning. "Just happens to be someone's favorite."  
  
An actual giggle came out of TenTen's mouth. "I wonder who it could be."  
  
It was a wonder that Hinata hadn't spontaneously combusted from the blushing.  
  
"So. Where in the world did you find all this stuff? I thought we only brought field rations." Ino glared at the pot enviously, wanting to eat something more than whatever paper and rat poison which comprised their field ration. "Don't tell me you took things out of the cook tent! Although, I don't remember them having anything but rice and some fishy kind of things.."  
  
Hinata blushed even darker, turning into a curious shade of fuchsia, as she stammered out that no, certainly not, she would never break rules like that since the food in the cook tent was assigned to certain injured people. When the girls kept eyeing her curiously, she lowered her eyes but refused to elaborate further, not going into the gruesome details of giving Kurenai the sad, broken puppy eyes until she had handed over the precious package nor the three hour foraging in the woods for the proper mushrooms and herbs.  
  
Instead, unsteady as her voice was, Hinata opted to change the subject to something that she knew Sakura and Ino loved to talk of incessantly: Uchiha Sasuke.  
  
"I didn't see Sasuke in the meeting," Hinata ventured bravely as they got ever closer to Naruto, "is he still abed?"  
  
"Of course!" Ino flipped her hair artfully, tilting her chin to show off her flawless profile. "Sasuke was so horribly injured. He needs rest. Besides, it's not like Sasuke would care about Naruto, you know."  
  
"Oh." Hinata could say nothing more. She wasn't entirely sure if Sasuke and Naruto were friends or not, but from what little she had observed, she had not gotten the impression that they truly hated each other.  
  
"I wonder about that.." Sakura said very softly so that Hinata did not think she heard it clearly. Too polite to inquire further, Hinata pretended that the pink haired girl said nothing. If anything, she was glad they were no longer talking about her gift to Naruto. It embarrassed her to be so teased, especially when it seemed that these girls knew that she had a crush on a certain blonde boy. How they had figured it out, she had no idea, it's not like she told anyone. Hell, she hardly ever spoke.  
  
"Well, come on," TenTen announced, "let's go see our battalion idiot. I'm sure Hinata wants to, right?"  
  
Surrounded by good natured teasing, Hinata resolutely stamped down the urge to run away and marched towards the tent.  
  
Finally, she'd see Naruto again.  
  
--  
  
TBC  
  
-- 


	9. The Burden of Choices

The reviews were so wonderful and uplifting that I feel rather bad about this chapter. I struggled with it, the words not coming so easily. I hope it's not going to disappoint, I promise other chapters to follow will improve. I'm trying to get to a place but it's taking so damned long! Okay, enough of that. Once again, thank you for all the reviews.  
  
Warning: OOC? I can't really tell. Introspection, silly arguments and some laying of the foundation for future plots. Some grammar stuff I missed.  
  
Disclaimer: Do I own Naruto? No. Do I want to? Uh, yeah.  
  
--  
  
The Burden of Choices  
  
A lone figure sat on a high branch of a pine, leaning back against the sturdy trunk. The right leg dangled off the branch, swinging to a rhythm only he could hear, while the left one folded at the knee, his arms resting on it. The blue sheen of the moon glazed over the normally blond head of hair and deepened the sky blue of his eyes to deep cobalt, giving him a semblance of being older than his fifteen years.  
  
As relaxed as he looked, it was not the case, for Naruto was on watch. Finally, after a week of being forced in the bed despite his healthy condition, Kakashi had given him the okay to do something other than lay about his ass. Not that the week had been boring, not at all. He had visitors every day, all of the 121 having made the time to come and see him, some of them staying for hours just talking to him. Of course, that list had not included Sasuke. The asshole had not visited him since he had woken up, not since he had walked out of the tent the first day.  
  
'Like I care,' Naruto snorted with bravado, 'I don't need him to make me feel better.'  
  
If he said it enough, it would be true. Though, just how many times did he have to repeat it before it did become true? Because, right now, he was rather disappointed that it had yet to take effect. Just where was the dark haired boy, anyway?  
  
'Don't care, remember? He was a total bastard, remember? None of my fucking business, remember?'  
  
If that was the case, then why did he miss Sasuke?  
  
'No, I don't!' Grinding his teeth, Naruto strove to find something else to think about. This was getting stupid. 'Yeah, that's right, Sakura visited me every day.'  
  
Interesting that he had to force that goofy grin on his face, but he did it. 'Yeah, I love Sakura,' Naruto continued musing, 'I love her pink hair, jade eyes, smooth skin and.. uh.. stuff.' Definitely, he had not missed Sasuke.  
  
'Okay, stop thinking about him.' It was becoming a mantra, but he didn't know what else to do. Forcefully, he again turned his mind to something else. He closed his eyes, wracking his brain, and eventually, he recalled Hinata's unfailing kindness. Her words had been barely audible but encouraging, and she had always brought him something nice. She had brought him ramen the first day, blushing to the hairline, constantly twiddling her fingers together as she watched him eat with her silvery eyes. That had been fun, Ino throwing him contemptuous glares but smiling gently, Sakura laughing at his side about his sloppy eating habits and TenTen, a girl who had barely acknowledged his existence, teasing him like a friend.  
  
The girls had not been the only ones to visit, either. In fact, Shikamaru had come by every day; surely, he did complain each time he did, but still, he came to talk to him about various things. Through him, Naruto had found out that Sasuke had gone back into active duty despite the injuries still plaguing him and vicious opposition from Asuma on the second day of his awareness. Also, Shikamaru had brought Chouji a few times, the fat boy who insisted that his bones were the only things that were large on his body. Naruto learned never to reach out for the ever present potato chip package on Chouji for if he had not been quick enough, he could have lost his arm.  
  
Of course, he had not missed Sasuke any. How could he when Lee had showered him with praises and given him a passionate lecture on courage and bravery? No way could he even give Sasuke a single thought when Neji had been nice enough to discuss battle tactics and fill him in on the happenings of the 121 during his absence.  
  
Even Shino had come by. Shino, the one guy who spoke even less than Hinata, had made his presence known. He had said very little, but from what he said, Naruto had gotten the impression that he was at least not disappointed that he had come back to life. Okay, he had said, "Welcome back. Try not to do it again," and then left, but still, that was way more than what Sasuke had given him.  
  
'Egh, Sasuke.. stop invading my head!' Couldn't the bastard figure out that he was trying to not think about him by thinking about other people?  
  
Like.. Kiba, yes. Dog boy. He had made fun of him, but it had been very good natured. Or at least, he hoped so, because otherwise, some of things had been pretty damned offensive. Naruto would have to rethink that one.  
  
'Heh, not thinking about Sasuke.' A pause, then a grimace.  
  
"Goddamnit!"  
  
--  
  
The message, though succinct, had contained more information than he had wished. Kakashi never said more than necessary, sometimes even resorting to leaving out words to make the sentences shorter, and this had been no different. However, the underlying uneasiness and the faint trace of worry on the chakra sealed message had been clear.  
  
Things were not so well in the fifth line.  
  
The Third Hokage lifted his gnarled hand to rub against his chin, fuzzy with white stubble he had neglected to shave properly. These days, more things plagued his mind than personal hygiene, most especially today.  
  
Damn the message.  
  
'It's too soon,' the old man slumped in his seat, his shoulders sagging with the weight of responsibilities and lives. 'Too soon for the Nine- Tails to manifest like this. Naruto cannot control him the way he is now, he's too weak.'  
  
He crumpled the message in his hand, the images invoked by its content still fresh in his head. Nine-Tails, awoken so suddenly and so powerfully, sat uncomfortably in his gut. Kakashi had written various things, from his first hand accounts to whatever Sasuke and Naruto had told him, but the most startling thing was that he had told the Demon Bound the story behind him because the Nine-Tails had spoken to him.  
  
According to the report, Naruto finally knew why and how he had become the holder of the fearsome demon, or at least, as much as Kakashi knew of the incident, which admittedly, wasn't a whole lot, just the bare minimum facts that every adult in Konoha knew. Still, the information should have caused some sort of shock or something, anything other than the blasé shoulder shrug Naruto had shown his commanding officer.  
  
If he only knew what was going through the boy's mind, he might be able to relax, but no one, not even Kakashi, could figure it out. Naruto had gone through a short period of panic when he had finally gotten the silver haired ninja to talk of the demon and its origins, but afterwards, he had shrugged it off as if he had been told that he had a slight cold. As if it was just a discomfort, no big deal, something that he could get over without worrying about it.  
  
That worried the Third. That and the fact that Nine-Tails and Naruto had held a conversation somewhere deep in his mind. And that no one except Naruto knew of what they talked about since he had not divulged that information to anyone. Oh, and of course, the near decimation of the fifth line by an infiltration squad that no one had picked up on until attacked.  
  
'When did everything become so out of control?' The Third Hokage sighed, removed the cumbersome hat of his office off his head, and rested his hands on the massive desk filled to the edges with papers and maps. 'The war has gone on too long, ten years too long. Am I a fool for letting it go on for longer?'  
  
His sorrowful eyes sought out a portrait on the wall across from him, the one that hung over the door to his office. A young man solemnly stared back in oil and canvas, his blond hair somehow falling sedately yet wildly around his wide shoulders, his blue eyes a mere imitation of the fierceness of when he was alive.  
  
'Ah, Fourth, did you foresee this when you signed your death warrant? Did you see the pitiful state of the world, the blood and the violence? Did you see Konoha disintegrating under the weight of death? Is that why you gave us Naruto?'  
  
As always, the painting said nothing, but the Third felt the heavy gaze of the dead man, piercing through the tough exterior he exhibited for his followers. 'Should I have surrendered only if to avoid the deaths? Should I have tossed Konoha at the mercy of Sound, only if to see our children live?'  
  
This argument with the portrait was an old one, something that the Third indulged in when the burden became too heavy to bear on his creaking shoulders. The questions never answered swam in the empty air of his office like a thick coating of smoke from a peat fire.  
  
"Yes, I know," the Third finally voiced the thoughts. "I know that if we don't fight, then we'd be under the unknown rule of the Sound. A warmongering, blood-thirsty nation bent on conquest cannot give us a pleasant, free future. Still, I can't justify it sometimes, especially when the children of Konoha have become the soldiers on whose sacrifice we tread."  
  
In the afternoon light, the Fourth's face looked more regretful than accusatory, and the old man sitting in the chair of his command could not find it in himself to look away.  
  
"Your last legacy is the key." Ah, there was that accusing look now. "I know you meant for him to grow into a fine, young man, surrounded by friends and protected from harm." Gods, wasn't that what he had promised the young Fourth when they had stepped onto the field against the demon for the last time? "But what can I do, but what I must? What can I do but sacrifice your last will in the name of peace and Konoha?"  
  
Silence smothered him and he watched with tired, rheumy eyes as the light shifted on the canvas, highlighting the leader he himself had anointed with oil at the coronation and then once more at his funeral. Fifteen years the Fourth had been dead, his last act as their leader to give his life up for the country he loved, to leave in this world the last thing that he could claim as his own with a burden so heavy that the boy could be crushed underneath it all someday. Such harsh sacrifices had been made fifteen years ago in hopes for a better future, and here he was, talking to the portrait of a dead man, mourning his responsibilities while his children died in a war that should not have happened.  
  
"Naruto is strong, very strong." He had known that since the day of his birth, the day of the sealing. He had become more certain as the years passed, as he watched the young Naruto grow up surrounded by hatred and still managing to retain all that was good and confident. "He may not be the most brilliant one." No, that one had defected after killing off his clan. "He may not be the quickest learner." No, that title fell to the last of the Uchiha, no contest. "He may not be the most skilled one." Kakashi reigned supreme in that area, still. "But he is the most resilient one, a brightly shining star in a sea of darkness."  
  
The Third closed his eyes, blocking out the portrait from his sight, and rubbed his hands over his face. There were things that had to be done, even if it tore at his heart and gave him nightmares.  
  
"Your shining star, Fourth, will save Konoha. Because you knew it back then as I do now that only someone that bright can contain and control the dark evil of Nine-Tails." Who else would have the mental strength to win against the demon? Who else could cultivate the physical prowess necessary to harness that great power? "He is not ready yet, but you and I know that he will be."  
  
'Because he hates to lose. Just like you.'  
  
The Third shook his head and delved back into the papers on his desk, his head no longer submerged in an invisible conversation with the long dead man. He only hoped that when he died and he went before the gods for a reckoning, he would get a chance to apologize to the Fourth for failing him and sacrificing his only son before he was condemned to Hell.  
  
--  
  
"It's fishy, I tell you," Ino sniffed, her blue eyes scanning the area around them to make sure that no one was eavesdropping. "I mean, Sasuke is going out of his way to be scarce these days. Like he's avoiding him."  
  
Shikamaru rolled his eyes as he adjusted the band that kept his nearly impossible hair out of his way. For five days since Naruto had become active again, Ino had found the time to nag him about Sasuke every chance she got. She tracked Sasuke like a bloodhound would a wounded rabbit and reported all her observations and analysis to him for some reason. Surely, discussing such trite and stupid things should be reserved for the ears of other insane females, but no, Ino thought it necessary to inflict such a cruel mental torture on him.  
  
"I mean, I do admit, Sasuke and Naruto aren't the best of friends." Ino babbled right over Shikamaru trying to strangle himself with the scarf that hung about his shoulders. "So I thought, sheesh, no problem, good thing Sasuke and Naruto aren't running into each other." Shikamaru sighed when all he got from self strangulation was a bit of discomfort instead of the blissful embrace of death. "But the more I look, the more I see that Sasuke is avoiding rather too enthusiastically."  
  
The blond girl continued with her incessant rambling, her hand grasping hard on Shikamaru's sleeve so that he could not escape without looking like a fool. Why was it that he was in this humiliating position? How had this happened? The whole thing was troublesome, damn it, to have this pretty but incredibly Sasuke-obsessed woman making him listen to every word of her Sasuke rambles.  
  
Though, what she was saying was quite true. As Naruto and Sasuke's roommate, he had been in the unfortunate position to observe their behavior towards each other. He thought that as much as they aggravated each other, they would find the means to get as far away from each other as possible. Yet, that had proved untrue as he saw his two roommates gravitate towards each other more and more, even if all the words and actions between them had been filled with threats and glares.  
  
Therefore, Sasuke's purposeful avoidance of Naruto was quite strange, even out of character. Then again, who cared, it had nothing to do with him, right?  
  
Or this crazy woman still talking and holding him captive by his sleeve.  
  
The torture might have gone on if Shikamaru had not been sharp enough to pick out a bobbing head of pink hair walking across his line of vision. It showed how desperate the boy was when he actually called to her, pitching his voice somewhere between desperate and nonchalant, making her walk over to him and his gorgeous torture-mistress with a smile that bordered on a sadistic smirk.  
  
Good god, did all women enjoy tormenting him or was it just the ones in his acquaintance?  
  
"Sakura, get this obsessive woman off of me." Shikamaru pulled ineffectively at his sleeve in a death grip by such delicate looking lily white teacup hands. "I can't listen to another syllable about Sasuke." His pulling became more frantic as he picked out that gleam in Sakura's green eyes. The twit was enjoying this, damn it. "You like the guy, you talk to Ino about it. I have better things to do." Take the freaking hint, he silently pleaded, let me keep some of my tattered dignity.  
  
Stifling a giggle, Sakura leaned against the tree by which the three of them stood, and feigned innocence. "How can anyone get tired of talking about Sasuke?" Shikamaru turned an unhealthy shade of green and failed to see that Sakura and Ino's eyes met over his head in amusement. "After all, Sasuke is soooooo gorgeous."  
  
"Of course," Ino gushed, her eyes sparkling unnaturally, "and he's got that heavenly body. Not to mention, intelligent."  
  
"He has great tastes in everything as well." Sakura tossed her hair, tilting her head at the exact angle that Ino's head was. "He wouldn't be interested in me otherwise." Sakura ignored the small prickle in her chest and widened her smile, her eyes never leaving Ino's. This was an old argument between them, just who Sasuke liked, but for some reason, the banter wasn't as fun as it used to be.  
  
"How can you say that when obviously, Sasuke likes me better?" A nip of panic pitched Ino's voice higher than usual. She had seen the dimming of Sakura's eyes, and she refused to let it go on. It had been ages since they had this argument, since they had felt light hearted and care-free enough to engage in it.  
  
'Come on, Sakura,' Ino encouraged silently, her eyes holding the saddening greens as captive as her hand held Shikamaru, 'argue back. Let's go back to normal.'  
  
"He can't like you better." The pink haired girl tried gamely, her voice only cracking slightly. "He talks to me but he doesn't say anything to you."  
  
'Sure, he talks to you,' a scoffing voice in the back of her head taunted, 'but does he ever say anything that means something?' Strange how she could hold the grin and stare at Ino without shedding tears she felt gathering. 'Has he ever said half of the things he's supposed to say if he liked you?'  
  
The talk stopped, Sakura lost in her head and Ino at a loss for words, and Shikamaru looked around at the two silent girls like a mole just come up for sun. The silence stretched into minutes, Sakura and Ino communicating without words or movements, their eyes passing all needed information through the air. It rather amazed Shikamaru that some people had that kind of rapport with each other, when words became unnecessary and even intrusive, to have that type of mental connection that bordered on telepathy. If anything, it cemented the fact that despite the raging fights they had over the dark haired boy named Sasuke, they were close at heart, understanding that they were best friends underneath all the surface rivalry.  
  
Still, this kind of female understanding and bonding did not necessitate his presence. In fact, it was damned uncomfortable being there for Shikamaru.  
  
"You can let go now."  
  
Both of the girls started and blinked at him, as if they had forgotten that he had been there the whole time. Well, if that wasn't irritating.. after all, who the hell had held him there so that he could not go about his normal activities, keeping him prisoner to torture him with grandiose talks of Sasuke's better attributes? And they had the gall to forget that he had been there?  
  
Damn women.. especially Ino. Being pretty did not excuse her behavior.  
  
"Oh, Shikamaru, why are you still here?" Irritation at the situation elevated into disbelieving fury. They really had forgotten him, those crazy females. "You may go now, Sakura and I need to talk privately."  
  
Ino let go of his sleeve and literally shoved him by his shoulder to send him on his way, not even bothering to look in his direction as she resumed her silent communication with Sakura. Affronted but too damned lazy to put up a fuss, Shikamaru muttered some choice swear words under his breath and left the site of his humiliation.  
  
Women were damned moody, he concluded as he walked off a bit stiffly. Not to mention, all of them enjoyed tormenting boys, whether out of a sick sense of fun or just pure instinct. They had certainly made a prime example out of him this day.  
  
Therefore, as logic dictated, he had to go and hang out with some males to rebuild his sense of masculinity, to get over Ino's imprisonment of his person only using her delicate hand. Yes, male bonding with grunting, disgusting behaviors not appropriate for polite company and words of an indelicate nature were sorely needed.  
  
Feeling a bit more at ease after his exercise in logic, Shikamaru sauntered towards the camp in order to remedy his sorely abused masculinity.  
  
--  
  
The topic up for discussion was a grave one, weighing down the atmosphere to leaden, but it had to be discussed, dissected and analyzed. Still, even in the tent jutsu-ed nine different ways to next week to prevent eavesdroppers, they felt as if they were being overheard, as if someone was watching them intently, causing the four of them to hunch over with their heads towards each other, their voices low and almost whispery.  
  
The Demon Bound, a topic forbidden for even light bantering for joke's sake, was never an easy thing to talk about, even among the four commanders who had him under their watch and command.  
  
It had been nearly two weeks since Kakashi had divulged everything he knew of the incident with the demon fox fifteen years ago to Naruto, since they had been at the edge of their seats just waiting for him to explode in a fit of confusion and rage at being the sole bearer of such a huge responsibility and curse. Yet, nothing had happened. The blonde had just gone back to being himself, cracking jokes and playing the fool. They weren't sure if that was good or bad, but it sat unwell with them all.  
  
As far as Kakashi had told the rest of them, Naruto now knew as much as they did. He knew that the demon fox Nine-Tails had been sealed in him on the day he was born by the Fourth. He finally got to know the truth of the situation instead of the history taught to children, the one that said the Fourth died in a vicious battle, taking the Nine-Tails to the land of the dead with him. He knew that everyone older than twenty knew of him and the seal, finally realized why the community at large hated and shunned him.  
  
Kurenai thought that had she been Naruto, fifteen and being told that she was a vessel for a demon, she would have ended up shivering in the cold corner, raging against the unfair lot the fates had thrown in her face, most likely crying and bitching. Not Naruto, though. He was as cheery as ever, joking around with others, not letting the sharp barbs and insults get to him, smiling right through the cruelty of some and enjoying the warm friendliness from his battalion. Therefore, if nothing had changed for Naruto, then why all the tension? Were they just paranoid?  
  
"Did the Third send any replies back to your report?"  
  
Kakashi crouched on the floor, the other three following his example, as he carefully unrolled a piece of parchment. At first glance, it was blank, but a small jutsu and a trickle of chakra later, letters emerged, bleeding onto the paper, forming itself into a message.  
  
"This is it," Kakashi mumbled, his visible eye sweeping through the contents, "but it does not say much."  
  
"What is there to say?" Asuma turned the message towards him, reading the familiar scrawl of the Third with a practiced eye. As he'd suspected, the only thing the Third wanted was a careful monitoring of Naruto and the seal. Their leader did not see it fit to have Naruto sent back to Konoha for that would cause too much suspicion. All they had to do was make sure to keep an eye on him, the seal and continue on as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. After all, the only reason Naruto was in the war was because of his status as Demon Bound, because he could access the Nine- Tails; this was supposed to happen, in any case, according to the plan.  
  
"So," Kurenai whispered, her ruby eyes taking in the serious faces of her fellow commanders, "now that Naruto knows and has somehow tapped the power of the Nine-Tails, what's our course of action? The Third did not tell us what to do in the event Naruto actually used the power of the demon."  
  
"Well, none of us thought it would happen so damned soon." Asuma stamped out his cigarette before it could burn down into the filter. "Going by Naruto's rate of development, none of us thought that he would be strong enough to call forth that chakra until much later."  
  
Kakashi snorted through his mask, his one eye amused and chagrined at the same time. "He developed faster than we thought, I suppose. After all, stress from killing and facing death accelerates your growth more than grueling training."  
  
"Whatever the hell happened, what we have now is an active Demon Bound." Lips compressed into a thin line, the only female commander of the 121 tapped her fingers in a frustrated gesture onto the floor. "So, once again, what the hell do we do now?"  
  
"Of course, I will train him to properly channel the fox's chakra." Kakashi pointedly refused to look at Gai who raised his head sharply enough to cause whiplash. "I did train him before, and I always did plan on bringing out his full potential, right along with Sasuke."  
  
Gai shook his head and for once, gazed sternly at the silver haired man whom he considered his great rival. "No, you can't do it." Kakashi looked up, an eyebrow quirked challengingly. "That is not to say that you are not capable, my long time rival," Gai continued, his eyes unwavering. "You may be the most capable, but we are dealing with the Nine-Tails. Who among any of us can deal with that?"  
  
"I'm training Naruto, not fighting the demon."  
  
"In the end, is there a difference?" Asuma questioned, taking over the conversation thread from Gai. "When the power is harnessed, can we say that we're really dealing with Naruto?"  
  
"Who else would it be? Naruto is Naruto, no matter what chakra he channels."  
  
Asuma sighed and lit a cigarette. Kakashi could be damned stubborn sometimes, mired down by his own twisted logic. "I'm saying, Sasuke told us that Naruto changed when the red chakra took over. Naruto told you that the demon talked to him. He damn near did not come out of a coma and god knows how the hell he did." He inhaled some more of the pungent smoke, feeling the dark taste filter down into his lungs. "We know almost nothing about the seal, only the Fourth did. We know nothing of how the Nine-Tails and Naruto interacted to bring about that power. We just don't know enough to try to train Naruto to draw on the chakra of the demon, that is all."  
  
"So you suggest we do nothing?" Kurenai narrowed her eyes, giving Asuma a look that sent a small shiver down his back. "We just keep watching him, to see when the seal will crack and take him out?"  
  
Slowly tapping out the cigarette on the dirt floor, Asuma dropped his dark eyes to the fading embers, staring at the disappearing red glow. "No, not nothing. But there has to be another way. I refuse to see us doing something terribly wrong because we know too little and harming Naruto. And consider, what if the fox takes over the next time because we did something we weren't supposed to do? Do you want to risk consigning Konoha to the wrath of the Nine-Tails, most especially now, in the middle of a war?"  
  
"What if, what if.." Kakashi sighed and stood, turning his back on his fellow officers. "Too many what ifs, and not enough action. For all we know, Naruto will call the fox on his own again and without some kind of training, it really will go out of control." He undid the seals on the tent, effectively signaling the end of this meeting. "There are many things that can happen, and most of it will be bad. But we don't have too many choices."  
  
Kakashi left the tent, only leaving small dirt puffs wafting in the air to show that he was ever there. The other three remained crouched in a semi- circle, staring at the spot where Kakashi had been, considering his words against their own thoughts, trying to come to a conclusion.  
  
--  
  
TBC  
  
-- 


	10. In the Past, In the Future

Wow, sorry about that long hiatus. I've been busy and then, I got sick. You know, Mongolian death flu kind of sick. I'm still recovering, so forgive for the delayed updating. But I loved all the reviews. Every single one of them made me want to write faster and more – hence this chapter through the haze of fever.  
  
Warning: yaoi, blood, violence, the usual.  
  
Disclaimer: not that it's needed, but no, I do not own Naruto.  
  
Notes: I'm not very good with Itachi, I'm sure of that. I'm not familiar with his character enough, so bear with me. Also, as you probably figured out by now, I don't have a beta. All this is first draft stuff, I don't even read it over before I post.. bad habit, but I'm rather impatient like that. So excuse the grammar mistakes and other mistakes that pop up, let me know if anything is truly glaring.  
  
--  
  
In the Past, In the Future  
  
He was seven years old.  
  
He ran through the moonlit streets of Konoha on soft, sandal-clad feet, his arms pumping in time with his legs. The barely heard slaps of his soles rang hollowly in the empty streets and his puffs of breath came faster with each step. The hour was late, almost midnight, several hours past curfew, and he knew if he didn't get home soon, his parents would most certainly give him a scolding that he would not soon forget.  
  
The boy grimaced through his burning lungs as he picked up his pace. He was rather peeved, really, that he had to actually run back to his family's compound on his feet. Only if his completely brilliant brother would teach him some of the cool ninjutsu he knew, he would not have to rush through these deserted streets on his too short legs, gasping for oxygen. But when he had asked his older brother for pointers, he had gotten the same answer as always: when you're older.  
  
That, of course, meant 'when you finally have your Sharingan,' but no one said it as such. But he knew, even at the tender age of seven, that without his family's talent running through his eyes, he could not hope to learn the things Itachi had known since he was three.  
  
His pace dropped as he sulked a little. It was not his fault that Itachi had gotten his Sharingan at an unprecedented age of three, nor was it his fault that his own had yet to manifest. His father had assured him that most Uchiha with the blood limit ability achieved it when they became ten or so and therefore, he should not be so anxious. Yet, how could he not feel the pressure, the expectation from his parents, his entire clan, when his own brother had exceeded all hopes and dreams of their powerful family at an age when most children still had to wear diapers and a nappy?  
  
Although, he had to admit, there was more admiration than jealousy for his brother. One day soon, his father would step down as the head of the Uchiha clan and pass the title onto his brother. The only reason it had not happened so far was that Itachi was only seventeen, and even though his talents and skills far surpassed anyone in the clan, he was still young. The clan leaders had decided that without wisdom that came with age, Itachi, as strong as he was, could not be a leader.  
  
Not that he knew what that meant, only that Itachi would serve the clan until their father resigned or died. Death was more of a possibility in this age of war, but Sasuke prayed for otherwise. Just the other week, his clan had lost a member to the war, a second cousin or perhaps even a first cousin, Sasuke could not be sure, and they had all attended the mass funeral. Too many died for single funerals to be held, so Konoha got together once a month to mourn those who died in the war.  
  
Once a month, Sasuke learned the price of war.  
  
The moon shied behind the cloud cover, and Sasuke could no longer clearly make out the streets. Had he not been so familiar with these twisty turns, he would surely have run into a wall by now, but his nightly excursions were too many for him to have lost his way. Just because he did not have the Sharingan did not mean he could not train himself to the point where it would color his eyes red. His father probably knew that he snuck out after dinner every day to train by himself, that he broke curfew despite the Hokage's strict ruling, but no one had scolded him too harshly. The most he had gotten was for him to reflect on his mistake and try not to do it again, but that was when he had made it in by eleven at the latest.  
  
Tonight, if he didn't hurry, he might actually get into trouble.  
  
A right, go fifty two paces, then a soft left, forty seven paces, a hop and a jump over the broken wall, eighty nine paces, a left, sharp left and then an immediate right.  
  
His family compound would appear in one more turn and Sasuke swallowed thickly. He had nothing to offer his father except an apology for being so late, maybe excuse himself for training without adult guidance. What else could he say? Even though his motives were right, his methods were not.  
  
All thoughts of excuses and his punishment disappeared the moment he turned right and saw the bodies.  
  
People he recognized lay in unsightly clumps all along the street leading to the door of the Uchiha compound, blood carpeting the pavement, seeping through the cracks and pooling in the shallow rain gutters. To his left, his aunt, a woman who had always had the time to make him a snack. To his right, his cousin, older than him by only a few weeks, the one who had just realized his blood limit ability a day ago. Sasuke let his feet carry him through the gruesome street, his eyes taking in the people who had been alive at dinner, the people who had been his family.  
  
His uncles, cousins, aunts, they all lay still on the street. Some had weapons in their hands, some with defensive wounds on their arms. Through the haze of shock, a calm voice that sounded like his brother spoke, telling him that this had been a surprise attack by a small number of very skilled ninjas. Sasuke only stared, his eyes wide and glassy, as he carefully walked through to the door of his home, his feet avoiding the outstretched arms and legs but unable to sidestep the blood that painted the ground red.  
  
Was everyone.. dead?  
  
"Mother!"  
  
A scream tore out of him and he ran, no longer feeling his limbs or his tears that started to pour, into the house and through the rooms.  
  
"Father!"  
  
Room after room, nothing but corpses of people he knew and loved, nothing but the stench of blood and death. Sasuke fell when he slipped on a puddle of blood, his arms stretching out before him to catch his body only to splash in more blood. How much blood was there? How much more of THIS was there?  
  
"Itachi!"  
  
His voice shattered and he sat, oblivious to the blood soaking in through his pants and shirt, not feeling the stickiness of congealing mass on his skin. His glazed eyes reflected the dim light of the moon coming in through the windows, tears mixed with blood on his face. What in the world..  
  
Shakily, Sasuke stood. His head swam and his stomach boiled, but he managed to stagger back outside, to the garden in the back where his parents used to hold picnics for him and his brother. The quiet rustle of the willow, the soft scent of sakura, the calming chortle of the little stream.. surely, if he went there, this nightmare would be over and he would wake up to the warm, loving arms of his mother.  
  
Surely.  
  
The garden looked as beautiful as it always did, the moon washing over the delicate trees and his mother's subtle artistic touches. Yet, the bodies that lay on the ground marred the beauty, the pond with the little stream now running red, and standing over this scene was a man with a long sword in his hand, his eyes gleaming like the blood that covered every surface.  
  
Itachi.  
  
"Itachi," Sasuke breathed, his voice a broken thread, "what is this?"  
  
His feet carried him by the still body of his mother who looked to the heavens with empty eyes, over the body of his father that lay face down upon the ground, to the only person besides him who lived. His dark eyes could see the splatters of blood, the gore that covered his brother and his sword, and his mind could only jump to one conclusion.  
  
"Did you get the people who did this?"  
  
Sasuke kept walking towards his brother and would have collapsed sobbing in his arms if it wasn't for the sharp pain in his shoulder. Disbelieving, Sasuke turned his eyes to the widening stain of blood that now graced the seam of his shirt and automatically raised his hand to staunch its tide. Belatedly, his brain connected the sequence of events and before this onslaught of unbelievable circumstances, his legs gave out and he sat heavily on the grassy ground.  
  
His mother, dead. His father, dead. Everyone in the family, dead. Itachi, alive and unharmed, holding the sword that had just inflicted this wound on his shoulder.  
  
Oh gods, Sasuke cried, is this what I think it is?  
  
"Little brother," he heard, the voice like jelly through water, "never forget what you have seen this night."  
  
He raised his head to look at his brother, but all he could see was the red. Red of blood, of the Sharingan, the crimson flood that his brother had unleashed.  
  
"One day, you will come looking for me for what I did tonight. One day, you will seek vengeance upon me and have it." Itachi put the point of his sword against Sasuke's throat, not drawing blood, but denting skin. "Before then, you must grow stronger, must grow to hate me more. You must become an avenger, Sasuke little brother."  
  
The words rang even after his brother had gone, long after the special forces came to his house and cleaned everything up. The scene, the words, they repeated in his head over and over until he could no longer bear it, until his head exploded with it all.  
  
--  
  
Sasuke sat up, breath hitching in his chest, his head whirling from the last vestiges of images. Sweat dripped off his forehead, plastering his fine, dark hair onto his face, covering his wide eyes from the darkness in his tent. His heart hammered like a trapped bird, thrashing against his ribcage enough to burst out, and his mouth tasted like ashes.  
  
The dream – or was it a memory – had been so vivid, more alive than when it had happened all those years ago. Why, after all these years, had that dream come to him so strongly and unexpectedly? He had faced Itachi and slept through many nights afterwards without dreaming about his brother or the events that had changed his life, but this night, a night that was not special by any means, had been the one that had brought the nightmare to life.  
  
Thankfully, the ones who shared his tent, Shikamaru and Naruto, were out on watch and had not witnessed this moment of utter weakness in him. It was enough that he and Naruto were not on good terms, mostly because he could not apologize to the blonde wonder, but to show him that he had nightmares? Naruto would scoff at his weakness, laugh at him because he's always searching for weakness in him, and maybe, worse than all those, sympathize with him.  
  
He'd rather Naruto laugh and poke fun at him than pity him.  
  
Soon, the nightmare faded and his sweat dried, but his heart did not stop its mad thumping. He had to calm down, banish the fear and the pain underneath the cold mask of vengeance, or he'd spend the rest of the night shivering and then go through his assigned watch half awake. That would not do, especially now that he knew how much he had to grow and train before he could face Itachi again.  
  
Sasuke got up from his cot, shoving aside the blanket that stuck to his bare chest, and wobbled to the wash basin set up by the flap of the tent. The cool water served to wake him up fully and wash away the last of the visions.  
  
'I can't go back to sleep,' Sasuke mused, 'but I can't go out for watch. Naruto is out there still.'  
  
A wry smile twisted his lips as he thought of the sunny haired boy that took up the time in his head not occupied by revenge. Ever since Naruto had awoken from the coma and he had said things he regretted, he had not had the courage to face the boy and talk to him. For some unknown reason, when Naruto entered his range of awareness, he caused his heart to pound and hands to sweat, turning him into a squirmy ball of nervousness. Therefore, instead of embarrassing himself by trying to apologize to Naruto or strike up a conversation with him as if nothing had happened, he had avoided the blue eyed one assiduously, to the point where he knew Naruto's schedule better than his just so that he did not have to cross paths with him.  
  
'Okay, two hours to shake this off. What do I do for two hours?'  
  
As if answering his silent question, the tent flap opened with a quiet slither and a figure walked in, his messy mop of blond hair resisting the call of gravity and his blue eyes startled to see him awake and standing.  
  
"What are you doing awake?"  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
Naruto and Sasuke stared at each other through the dimly lit darkness in surprise and wariness as the questions rang out simultaneously. Neither of them backed down, this was the first time they had spoken to each other in some time, but neither wanted to say anything else either. It would be something like a tacit admission of defeat if they looked away first or answered the question before the other, and even though the moment was horribly awkward, they remained as they were, standing and staring.  
  
Five minutes passed without a twitch of a muscle, ten minutes passed without an audible sound. Then, as if realizing that the whole situation was as ridiculous as it seemed, Naruto let out a chuckle, relaxing his shoulders and smiling genuinely.  
  
"So," Naruto began, his voice trembling with mirth, "how the hell did we come to this?"  
  
"This?" Sasuke ordered the madly fluttering butterflies to cease their movements. "What do you mean?"  
  
Naruto snorted, the sound ungraceful yet so fitting. "Don't play dumb, asshole. You're a bright guy. I mean.." He paused, trying to say what had been playing around in his head for a while without sounding bitter or angry. "I mean, this. The whole not being able to talk to each other and shit."  
  
Oh, that this.  
  
"We're talking now." Sasuke raised his hands palms out as if in truce or in exasperation. Naruto wasn't sure which. "Besides, wasn't it more peaceful without us arguing all the time?"  
  
True enough, without the two of them constantly pestering each other, the camp had seemed more peaceful. Or at least, as peaceful as a battle-camp could get in the middle of a war. However, that did not mean that it had been good in any case. After denying it for a long time and arguing against the stupid voice in the back of his brain insisting that he talk to Sasuke before they got killed in some skirmish, Naruto had come to the conclusion that indeed, he had missed the dark haired youth. To be honest, he had missed him a little too much.  
  
"Look, Sasuke, I don't know about you, but I thought we were getting to be friends, you know?" Naruto did not miss the ever subtle flinch that washed over Sasuke's face at the word, but he bullied on, ignoring the strange pang in his chest. "Sure, we started off being dicks to each other, but I thought that was like.." Naruto scratched his head, the words escaping him the longer he rambled. "Like.. a foundation. Yeah, a foundation for our friendship."  
  
"You think fighting all the time is basis for friendships?" Sasuke raised his eyebrow until it crawled beneath his forehead protector. "Isn't part of being friends getting along?"  
  
"Shit, we got along, didn't we?" Naruto huffed and set his facial features to pout. "Besides, how the hell am I supposed to know what friends are like? You're my first friend." Naruto wrinkled his forehead in thought and then corrected himself. "Or at least, I thought you were."  
  
Sasuke had the grace to look abashed, but he kept silent. He did not know what to say, even now.  
  
"Yeah, I guess that about covers it." What had he expected, that Sasuke would say that they were friends? When would he finally let go of the little bastard hope that kept him from realizing the fact that no one wanted to be friends with him? "I gotta get going."  
  
Hastily, Naruto brushed by Sasuke, picked up a couple of shuriken off his cot, his original goal in coming back to the tent, and made for a graceful exit. However, Sasuke had different ideas and before Naruto could leave, he latched onto the blonde's arm with a grip that would have left bruises if it weren't for the quick healing abilities natural to Naruto.  
  
"I just.." Sasuke sighed, unable to look at the blonde in his stupefied face, "I just didn't know how to say I was sorry."  
  
The sound of Naruto's jaw dropping was followed immediately by an unintelligible gurgle that could have been "What?"  
  
"I didn't mean to say those things." Hell, he had said he was sorry, in a way, so what was the harm in saying the rest of the things on his mind? "Then I didn't know how to take it back. After a while, it was just easier avoiding you."  
  
If Naruto had not been staring at the dark haired genius as he spoke, he may have doubted that it really was Sasuke speaking to him.  
  
"Itachi.." Sasuke swallowed, his throat dry with nervousness, "my brother. That is, you know of the Uchiha massacre, right?"  
  
Naruto nodded, not trusting his voice, but realized that since Sasuke was looking at anything other than him, he might not have seen the gesture. Therefore, he manfully let out a warbling sound that he hoped came out as a 'yes.'  
  
"So you know that my entire clan was wiped out in one night."  
  
Another whimpering sound and Sasuke finally looked up to see Naruto's face etched in shock and a weird sense of anticipation. The sunny ninja was really listening to him, like he cared about what came out of his mouth.  
  
It gave him the courage to say what he should have said thirteen days, twelve hours and nine minutes ago. Not that he was counting.  
  
"My brother is the one who did it."  
  
Sasuke watched as Naruto's mouth formed an 'oh' of understanding and surprise. Well, there, his cards were all on the table. The ball was in Naruto's court, it was now entirely up to the blonde to respond to the new information.  
  
"So," Naruto said when he could trust his voice not to crack, "your brother wants to kill off the Uchiha clan. Even you."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Then, why didn't he do it when he killed everyone else?" A hint of confusion entered Naruto's voice as he considered the logistics. If Itachi wanted to kill everyone of the Uchiha clan and had achieved most of that goal in one night, what had convinced him not to kill the last one, the genius one?  
  
"I'm not sure." Frustration and hatred boiled up in Sasuke as he thought about that dream, that night and his brother's merciless taunts not too long ago. "No one can figure him out, our father couldn't even fathom him when he was.."  
  
Naruto said nothing, waiting for Sasuke to put himself together so that he could say whatever it was that was weighing him down. Somehow, even though he had never had friends before, even though no one had ever confided in him until now, he knew that silence was the best thing to give Sasuke right now.  
  
"He told me to become an avenger." Sasuke finally said, the words painted in the colors of loathing. "He told me never to forget and to avenge."  
  
"So, are you an avenger?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why are you being the thing that he told you to be?" Sasuke would never do anything someone else told him to do, that was just part of who he was. So why was he?  
  
A humorless laugh escaped Sasuke's lips before he could rein it back. "What else can I be?"  
  
Naruto shrugged, the movement letting him know that Sasuke still held him by the arm. "You can be Sasuke," he replied, his voice gentle and soothing, but with a lilt of steel beneath it.  
  
"Sasuke, huh." Unbidden, Sasuke's eyes softened and his hand that held Naruto in a bruising grip gentled, traveling up to the blonde's shoulder then to his cheek to cup it gently. "Sasuke is an avenger. That's all there is to it, because that day, Itachi turned me into the person that I am."  
  
A thick swirl of emotions – pain at the forefront – swam in Naruto's eyes before he smiled to cover it. "As far as I know, Itachi didn't turn you into this asshole I know."  
  
Sasuke smiled back at Naruto, tremulous and slight, but still smiled. How had he managed to avoid Naruto for so long without having lost his mind?  
  
"I may be an asshole, but at least I'm not an idiot."  
  
The blonde's smile grew wider and Sasuke let his thumb graze the corner of that blazing grin that even the darkness of the night could not hide. The last two weeks of avoidance and hurt feelings dissipated with that simple movement and for the first time in a long while, their smiles turned genuine and their eyes reflected the change.  
  
"Hey, Sasuke.."  
  
The dark eyed boy didn't let Naruto finish, only nodding and continuing to rub the cheek that burned so hotly under his fingertips.  
  
"We are." Sasuke said simply, and for a short time, the world seemed most wondrous.  
  
--  
  
Uchiha Itachi sat in a chair of canvas and wood, leaning back against it as the person in front of him – what was his name again? – spoke to him of battle plans for the next big step in this war. He only paid half an attention to the babbling fool who served as a liaison between him and the bastard who wanted to conquer the world. As far as he was concerned, the only thing he had to do was make sure that no one got near his brother except for him. The only one who had rights to Sasuke was he and he alone.  
  
His usually expressionless face contorted slightly before smoothing out as he thought of his little brother. The boy had grown, of course he would have, it had been eight years after all. He was stronger than he had first anticipated, but still, it wasn't enough, not nearly enough to fulfill the plans in his head, the plans that no one but he knew. The kid had acquired the Sharingan somewhere along the way, but not the complete version, his right hand companion seemed to be the Demon Bound, but not at full potential.  
  
Time was running short and everything was coming up.. short.  
  
Damn it all to hell.  
  
The fool continued to ramble about the plans he already knew and he let him, knowing that if he kicked him out before he was done, he would have to deal with the bastard. Not that he couldn't, after all, it was rather conclusive that Itachi was more powerful than the leader of Sound, but he hated the man.  
  
If he was a man.  
  
Shaking off the thoughts of what he would like to do the bastard, Itachi coldly replayed the next step in the war in his head. It was a daring attack, something that even he had to admire for its audacity and genius. No one from Fire country would anticipate it, even after that surprise attack on the fifth line, and he was pretty sure that practically everyone on the side of Sound would be shocked into disbelief after they heard the plans the next morning.  
  
After all, it wasn't every day that a plan came up to end the ten year old war.  
  
"Sir, that is all."  
  
Itachi broke away from his musings and dismissed the man with nothing more than a look that could have killed him where he knelt. When the messenger scurried out with hasty bows and he was finally left alone, Itachi let out a rare smile, a smile that he had only shown his baby brother.  
  
'I'm coming home.'  
  
And he would come back to Konoha as he left it, leaving a path of blood and bodies, so that his brother could follow the trail. After all, what was the point of conquering Konoha if his brother wasn't there to welcome him back?  
  
--  
  
A pale hand shades lighter than a corpse opened the curtains to let in the dawning light. The air smelled crisp as it befit autumn and the sky reached up for miles, unattainable and bluer than all the larkspurs that covered the endless fields below. A shadow of a smile ghosted along the face looking out at this landscape. Ten years ago, the view out of his window had been nothing but dust and sand, winds tearing the horizon apart with its harsh brush and the sun so brazen that it had hurt his eyes. Now, his eyes could feast on this beautiful sight, his lungs could breathe in air not tainted with brown, and he could kill without remorse, regret, only with joy in his heart and a constant reminder that he was a strong being.  
  
Life was good. He only did the things he wanted to do, no one forced him to do anything else, no one dared to get in his way.  
  
"Gaara, are you ready?"  
  
Green eyes icier than glaciers pierced through the air and impaled the poor soul who had spoken. She shivered in fear, took a step back out of the room and into the hallway.  
  
"The plan has been revealed. We're-"  
  
With a squeal, she braced herself before a blast of sand shoved her completely out of the room and shut the door in her face. Gasping for breath that had been knocked out of her, she sat and assessed damages to her person, knowing that even when Gaara wasn't serious, he could literally flay the skin off a person without feeling like he had done anything wrong.  
  
Then again, the boy never felt that anything he did was wrong.  
  
She gathered her scattered wits and belongings, not wanting to walk back into that room, but she had been commanded to bring him to the hall. They had missions, damn it, things to do in order to win this war. But, if she walked into that room with Gaara, the red haired boy with no human feelings she was capable of understanding..  
  
Suddenly, the door opened and there he stood, his eyes cold and ringed in darkness, his hair mussed and glittering with sand. On his back, a gourd almost as big as the boy lay strapped, the cork on top the only thing preventing the murderous sand from escaping, and the girl breathed a sigh of relief when no more sand came at her. Once was enough to know it and fear it.  
  
"Gaara, let's go to the hall, everyone is wai-"  
  
"Temari, quiet." The voice, so raspy and dead, made her shut her mouth with an audible click. "Just tell me what I want."  
  
Stifling a sigh and a quake of dread up her spine, she said the only sentence that meant anything to Gaara.  
  
"It's time to kill."  
  
She was gifted with a soft smile that matched the bloodlust in his eyes and that was enough to knock the breath of her for the second time that morning.  
  
--  
  
TBC  
  
-- 


End file.
